Melis A. '08 | June 13, 2007
"Ana Posada: Improving the production of an HIV medication"
The Class of 2007 walked across the stage last Friday, and among the firehose-survivors was Ana Posada. Ana, a Biology major from Lawrenceville, GA, will head off to Dartmouth for a Ph.D program next year. As an undergraduate, she made sure to take time to explore our campus and enjoy the offerings at MIT. Among her many experiences, Ana worked in the Sinkey Lab, one of the few MIT microbiology labs, for one and a half years.
She says, “Other than getting people sick, bacteria have many useful applications such as biodegradable plastic production and bioremediation. My project focuses on the AIDS protease inhibitor Crixivan ®. The compound has 5 chiral centers and takes about 2 weeks to produce at only about a 50% yield. My research has centered on engineering a plasmid into Rhodococcus species that will allow the bacteria to produce a major intermediate of the drug. The benefits of using bacteria are that bacteria are stereospecific and that bacteria allow for easier scalability of a process.”
Basically, the drug Crixivan ® is used to combat HIV, but it is a very complicated compound that is extremely difficult to make. Instead of relying strictly on bench-top chemical reactions, the Sinskey Lab is using bacteria to perform a critical step in the production process. By inserting a plasmid, or small circular piece of DNA, into the bacteria, Ana is essentially training the bacteria to perform a specific task.
Ana found out about this UROP opportunity from the Experimental Microbial Genetics class. The lab also focuses on the production of a biodegradable plastic with many medical applications.
We wish Ana the best of luck! She reminds us to, “Enjoy MIT even during the hard times. There's no place like it.”
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The author has filed this entry in the "Life After MIT (Careers & Grad School)" , "Undergraduate Research Opportunities" section; check it out for further reading on this topic. |
Responses To This Entry:
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So many tough acts to follow....
Congrats -- and thanks for the inspiration.
Best of luck at Dartmouth.
Posted by: anon.again on June 13, 2007 11:18 PM
So many tough acts to follow....
Thanks for the inspiration.
Best of luck at Dartmouth.
Oh, and Melis, I did get a copy of Glamour!
Posted by: Anonymous on June 13, 2007 11:20 PM
Sorry for the double post -- the processing time for entries seems interminable, and I thought the first one just didn't go through.
Posted by: Anonymous on June 13, 2007 11:24 PM
That's so amazing! I want to go into medical research - I'm so excited to be able to start doing that in college! Thank you for posting her story =)
Posted by: Wings '11 on June 14, 2007 12:11 AM
Congrats Ana for the superb work and all the best at Dartmouth.Am from Kenya,Africa and AIDS is real!99% of the victims dying are the poor.Thanks alot Melis for the post.
Posted by: Ken Mbeva on June 14, 2007 09:26 AM
Congrats Ana for the superb work and all the best at Dartmouth.Am from Kenya,Africa and AIDS is real!99% of the victims dying are the poor.Thanks alot Melis for the post.
Posted by: Ken Mbeva on June 14, 2007 09:28 AM
Ummm melissa I dunno whether you know about this or not but I thought I would add to your information.
I am a muslim and being one we believe in Holy Prophet who once said " Any nation who indulges in illegal relationships, God will bring on them a disease that will be incurable" and now we find that its AIDS.
Moreover, I read over an year ago that some really big US Research department ( I cant remember the exact name), its head researcher on a way to find a cure to AIDS admitted that its very likely that we have to conclude that AIDS is absolutely incurable and it might be that its cure might not even be possible ever.
I wish people would like to see this world beyond science... I am telling this to a MIT student! omg! haha....cheers
Posted by: A well-wisher on June 14, 2007 09:36 AM
A well-wisher:
Whether that theory is right or wrong doesn't matter. The mission at MIT is not to judge, but to "better humanity," plain and simple.
And come on. Like anyone at MIT would ever let a word like "incurable" stop them.
Posted by: Karen on June 14, 2007 12:28 PM
To A Well-Wisher,
AIDS is not simply limited to the United States. It kills more people in Africa than anywhere else, and Africa is not a country but a collection of countries. To use your religion to say that these people deserve to die is incredibly low.
When you can provide proof behind your words, you might stand a chance of being believed. Until then, we will continue to hope for a cure and strive for one. A common cold used to kill. Cancer used to be a death sentence. These are not the cases anymore, and someday AIDS, I am certain, will turn this way as well.
Posted by: Wings '11 on June 14, 2007 05:22 PM
To a well-wisher:
I am a current MIT student and a Muslim. That does not mean I decide what diseases to try to cure, based on the race/gender/sexual orientation of the patient who suffers from said disease. Regardless of religious beliefs, the job of a scientist is to "better humanity". In the similar vein of Karen and Wings'11, the label "incurable" is only a challenge to try harder.
Posted by: Lady Theta on June 14, 2007 06:23 PM
Why should a religious belief stop a group of people from making the world a better place?
There is a cure for AIDS, it will be found, and the world will be better for it.
Posted by: Snively on June 14, 2007 07:19 PM
Well-wisher:
According to your religious belief, then, any medical research is futile. Most diseases would be "incurable" and even deadly if scientists resigned to accepting the disease's effect was of God's will. [Life expectancy would be about 45 again and the quality of life would not be near what it is.]
Posted by: Christina on June 14, 2007 08:23 PM
@well wisher:let me remind you of one fact that you are overlooking;AIDS is not spread by promisquity only,but through unsterilised injection needles and many other involuntary ways.then those who get infected this way then unknowingly pass it on to their spouses and so forth.So it is absolutely wrong to condemn everyone with AIDS!
Posted by: Ken Mbeva on June 15, 2007 03:36 AM
This is why I love to go to MIT. You never know what's gonna come up in the next second, but you can still find it enjoyable.
Posted by: Ronny CHEN on June 15, 2007 05:56 AM
Congrats, Ana. We are very proud of you and your achievemnts.
You continue to be my favorite grandaughter.
Posted by: H. Posada, MD on June 19, 2007 09:14 PM
ah those narrow-minded religion-bred people... pfffff
Posted by: pfffff on June 25, 2007 04:36 AM
