Wenjun Zhang labDepartment of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

-Completed the synthesis and evaluation two novel caged bioluminescent probes for their potential in monitoring cell-cell contacts in mammalian cells, resulting in a first author publication.- Synthesized six novel luciferins in progress towards identifying novel luciferin-luciferase pairs for multicomponent in vivo imaging.-Contributed to a shorter, higher yielding, and scalable synthetic route to D-luciferin and aminoluciferin resulting in a second author publication. -Improved and optimized a high throughput screening protocol capable of detecting functional enzymes with desired selectivity resulting in identification of at least four enzyme-substrate pairs with greater than 100-fold selectivity differences from the starting point.-Designed a set of semi-rational, site directed libraries for the luciferase enzyme, which have been utilized in mutant luciferases central to at least three publications.

Development of microengraved magnetic particles for use in animal feed analysis and identification. Responsible for quality control of a variety of animal feed related products.

-Taught Junior and Senior Madolenihmw High School Students in chemistry, english, math-Prepared Seniors for the annual college entrance exam resulting in a greater than 70% passing rate-Mentored a student who placed second in a Pacific wide science fair in Hawaii-Taught chemistry to accelerated students through the Upward Bound program

-Teaching people how to snowboard in beautiful Lake Tahoe.-Earned rookie of the year award as a result of commitment to improving my teaching skills and hard work.

Worked in the Discovery Chemistry department at Pfizer's Oncology site. Operated a flow reactor to synthesize libraries, optimize conditions and complete difficult reaction pathways.

Measured copper ion concentrations during "Click" chemistry reactions in the lab of Valery FokinAdvisor: Jason Hein

-Synthesized a novel fluorescent dideoxynucleoside resulting in a first author publication-Advisor: Dr. Debbie Tahmassebi

Volunteer position at a hospital in various departments