Hamilton College Professor and Chair of Chemistry George C. Shields hosted the 3rd MERCURY Conference in Computational Chemistry at Hamilton College. This national conference featured seven talks by invited speakers and 40 poster presentations by undergraduates, and was organized by Shields. Each undergraduate had two minutes to advertise his or her work in front of the entire audience of 70 attendees, followed by a two-hour period when they explained their work in detail at the poster session. Shields and Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry Karl Kirschner had 15 summer research students present the results of their collaborative research projects at the conference:
"The Enediyne Anticancer Antibiotics: A Study of the Bergman Cyclization Energy Barriers of Esperamicin A1 Using ONIOM DFT/MM Methods." Frank C. Pickard & Chantelle Rein.
"Global Search for Minimum Energy (H2O)n Clusters, n=3-5" Mary Beth Day.
"Thermodynamics of forming water clusters at various temperatures and pressures using G2, G3, CBS-QB3, & CBS-APNO model chemistries; Implications for Atmospheric Chemistry" Meghan E. Dunn & Emma K. Pokon.
"Structures of Carbonyl Sulfide(OCS)-Water Cluster Complexes and Water Cluster Catalysis of Atmospheric OCS Reactions" Timothy M. Evans.
"Obtaining Experimental Results from Computer-Designed Anti-Breast Cancer Drugs" Sarah E. Felder, Gabrielle Markeson, Sarah A. Taylor & Professor of Biology Stephen M. Festin.
"CAP-DNA Complex Binding Energies" Matroner M. George.
"Inhibition of biological compounds directed at drug design" Amber Gillis.
"Determination of pKa Values with PBE1PBE Density Functional Theory" Daniel Griffith & Matthew D. Liptak.
"Computational Study of Carbon Disulfide Oxidation with the Hydroxyl Radical and Water Monomer" Gregory M. Hartt & Timothy M. Evans.
"Mutagenesis of Cocaine Catalytic Antibody 15A10 for Improved Binding to Cocaine Transition State Analog" Philip J. Hanoian.
"Structural Analysis of Dimethyl Sulfide and (H2O)n for n=1-4" Philip T. Holdredge & Timothy M. Evans.
"The Free Energy of Solvation for Ions Calculated by Thermodynamic Cycles" Chenyan Huang.
"Finding Energy Minima for a Breast Cancer Inhibiting Peptide derived from AFP" Katrina Lexa, Meghan E. Dunn, Heather Michael & Damien J. Ellens.
"Conformational Analysis of an AFP-derived Cyclic Peptide: cEQ" Heather Michael, Meghan Dunn, & Katrina Lexa;
"A Computational Study of the Thermodynamic and Kinetic Effects of Water Clusters on Hydrogen Sulfide in the Atmosphere" Daniel B. Tomb & Timothy M. Evans.
