Joseph Wedekind, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics
Honors
RIT School of Chemistry and Materials Science “John Wiley Jones Outstanding Students in Science” Award Recipient 2022.
Achieved the “RIT Undergraduate Award in Biochemistry” for the year 2021.
Achieved the “RIT Undergraduate Award in Analytical Chemistry” for the year 2022.
Nominated for the “2021-22 RIT Outstanding Undergraduate Scholar” award.
Summa Cum Laude with Honors, RIT 2022.
Research Experience
September 2022-December 2022 Dr. Dmitri Ermolenko: The design of ribosomal FRET pairs for the detection of prokaryotic ribosomal collision.
January 2023- March 2023 Dr. Joseph Wedekind: Analysis of PreQ1-III Riboswitch Functionality in Response to Binding Pocket Mutations.
March 2023 – May 2023 Dr. Mitchell O’Connell: Assessment of Cas13b crRNA4 Mismatch Effectivity in Response to Bacteriophage Infection.
November 2018 – July 2022 Dr. Hans Schmitthenner: Solid phase synthesis of targeted molecular imaging agents for the detection of triple negative breast cancer. Solution phase synthesis and purification of dyes and imaging agents.
Current Research
Dr. Joseph Wedekind: studying the structure and function of novel riboswitches using biochemical and biophysical techniques. Current projects include the classification of ykkC-2C riboswitch cognate ligands using isothermal titration calorimetry and the structural determination of a SAM-I riboswitch variant using x-ray crystallography.
