Mathematics Students Research and Present Their Findings on "DNA Nanostructures"

Puzzling pieces of interesting projects came together for Saint Michael's mathematics students under faculty guidance this year.

More than just numbers-crunchers, these students produced sophisticated, satisfying and original conclusions that they presented in a poster and papers at regional conferences and a campus Student Research Symposium in the spring.

Here's what some wrote about the experience in an assignment for their professor, Jo Ellis-Monaghan, who is an expert on the "DNA nanostructures" that they were studying.

Tom Dickerson:

Research Summary: In order to design self-assembling DNA nanostructures, you must first know what tools you have to work with. Like building something from LEGOs, you have to know what pieces are at your disposal before you can plan your structure efficiently…
[This was where Tom’s summary becomes technical in math and science language and concepts, reflecting the high level of college research and study that he and fellow students undertook in their fields of interest]

Personal Reflection: I felt that this project was a great learning experience. In particular, it was great to work with a group of other students on a project that wasn't just for practice in a classroom. This was the first research project I've worked on with other people, and it was really enjoyable to have other people to bounce ideas off of. It was also very satisfying to finish such a significant chunk of work in a single semester. We were given the opportunity to present our work at two different undergraduate math conferences, which was pretty cool and a very enjoyable first exposure to math conferences.

Dan Koch:

Summary and reflection:One of the major goals in nanoscience today is to come up with a way to build nanostructures through the controlled placement of matter on the molecular level. The goal of the research that I have been involved in this semester is to minimize the cost of producing DNA nanostructures…

I had an amazing time with this project. I was able to jump right in to a group of my peers who are interested in studying math related research and work alongside them. … I enjoyed seeing how mathematicians can work with many other fields of study to accomplish research on groundbreaking technology. I learned better how to research and how to function in a group research setting. I enjoyed having the opportunity to articulate my research on several occasions at math conferences.

I've seen a lot of personal growth through this project and I hope to be involved in similar projects in the future. My word to students considering this type of work would be, "go for it." I didn't know exactly what I was getting into when I signed up but it turned out to be an extremely valuable experience.


Mary Spuches:

We use graph theory and geometry to minimize the cost of self-assembling DNA nanostructures [developing] a method of differentiating among tiles, the basic building blocks of the nanostructures themselves….

Activities: This project was a continuation of research done by students in previous semesters. Our first goal was to catch the new researchers, myself being one, up to date with what the project was about and what research they had already conducted. The previous researchers presented there current presentation to the new researchers and we read the papers the previous research group wrote…

Outcomes:  After conducting the research, we formalized our results into two papers….  We also created three power points with two people assigned to creating and presenting one. In April 2010, we attended the HRUMC undergraduate mathematics conference at Keene State College in New Hampshire. Here we presented our talks, attended other undergraduate presentations, and talked with math students from other areas in the Northeast. …Our school's Undergraduate Research Symposium … is another opportunity to share with other students and faculty the research we have been working on throughout the semester.

Student Impact: This project made me become less selfish in my work methods and required that I compromise with timing and work load.  I have become much better at time management and self-discipline.

I am hoping to get a job in some type of math career not related to teaching. This showed me that math is a huge field with so much open to research and learn about. This project has made me more confident in my choice of major, because math is used in all types of real world scenarios.

Lastly, this experience taught me how to teach myself. In many jobs, a person will not have all the background information required for the job, so it is necessary that you can pick up the job quickly and even learn on your own time.