Long a participant in Monmouth College's Kieft Summer Research Program
Monmouth, Ill. (07/30/2021) — Talia Long, a senior from Troy, Missouri, was one of 12 Monmouth College students to participate in the school's Kieft Summer Research Program.
An intensive eight-week experience that gives students excellent preparation for graduate or professional school, the program was created after the College received an estate gift of $2.3 million from beloved chemistry professor Richard "Doc" Kieft, who died in 2009.
The title of Long's project was "Expressing Vanillin Resistant gene in Escherichia coli."
With rising climate concerns, many are looking to biofuels to ease our carbon footprint. As of now, current biofuels are inefficient-for example, byproducts of corn ethanol release a similar amount of greenhouse gases as fossil fuels. Experts have found that the fermentation of lignocellulosic biomass by Escherichia coli produces significantly less greenhouse gases than fossil fuels, proving to be a promising alternative. However, pretreatment of the lignocellulosic biomass tends to create byproducts, such as vanillin, which are toxic to E. coli. Long's project aims to overexpress and isolate the toxin resistant protein in E. coli, which was previously selected to have toxin resistance through directed evolution.
Monmouth has used Kieft's gift to fund several elements that the late professor believed were essential: attracting strong science students to Monmouth through scholarships; providing them robust research opportunities once they matriculated; and facilitating their travel to regional and national conferences where they could present their research.
"All of this research time is invaluable to a student's education," said Monmouth chemistry Audra Goach. "Doc Kieft knew how important this experience was for our students and we are grateful for him every day."
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