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When Ismael and Nandita approached me last spring to see if they could submit abstracts for the American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting in Chicago in August, I was a little hesitant. The meeting lined up with the first week of classes so I knew I wouldn’t be able to attend. However, I remembered back to my first national ACS meeting when I was a senior in college and I knew I couldn’t say no. These meeting are huge (!!) but great because they have a lot of really interesting science alongside networking opportunities. Since both Nandita and Ismael are currently contemplating MD\/PhD programs in the future, the exposure to cutting edge research on a larger stage was going to be remarkable.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As I always do after conferences, I asked them to reflect on the meeting and their favorite talk attended. See below for pictures of their posters and their reflections in their own words.<\/p>\n
Oh and I should share the exciting news that Ismael’s poster got chosen for SciMix, which meant he got to present twice and to a broader audience! Congratulations!<\/p>\n
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Going to ACS Fall 2026 in Chicago was a really exciting experience because it gave me the opportunity to explore a city I\u2019d never been to and to see how much research is happening across so many different areas of chemistry. I really enjoyed getting to explore the city in between and after the conference events, especially seeing the architecture and getting to experience a completely new place. It made the trip feel like a good balance between an academic experience and getting to explore somewhere I had never been before. At the conference, there were so many talks, posters, and events happening throughout the conference that it was interesting to see both topics that were familiar to me and areas of research that I had never really considered before. Being surrounded by so many scientists and students also made the conference feel very different from a typical class or research lab experience.<\/p>\n
One of my favorite talks was Erin Carlson’s presentation, “Bacterial Resistance: Threats and Therapeutics,” which was part of the ACS Infectious Disease Early Career Award session. My own research is also related to antibiotic resistance, so it was interesting to see the topic from a different angle. I liked her idea of trying to make bacteria susceptible again to antibiotics they’ve already developed resistance to, instead of just focusing on making brand new antibiotics. She talked about polymyxins, which are considered a last resort treatment, and how her lab is looking at the way bacteria sense and respond to their environment to potentially get these existing antibiotics working again. She also talked about how some unexpected results in her research ended up pushing her group in new directions and raising new questions they hadn’t planned on.<\/p>\n
Overall, ACS Fall 2026 was a really valuable experience for me because I got to see what research looks like beyond my own lab and university. Between exploring Chicago, attending talks, and seeing all of the different research being presented, I came away feeling even more excited about being involved in research and seeing where my own interests can take me.<\/p>\n
~Nandita, BMB ’28<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/pollocklab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2026\/09\/DSC_1202-scaled.jpg” title_text=”Nandita – ACS 2026″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/pollocklab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2026\/09\/IMG_8862-scaled.jpeg” title_text=”Ismael – ACS 2026″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
My favorite talk of the conference was centered on an interesting imaging technology called real time precision opto-control (RPOC), designed to precisely track and activate cells without the off-target effects of traditional chemical interventions. Born out of the Chi Zhang Lab at Purdue University, RPOC allows for precise probing of cells using lasers of specific wavelengths to carry out the intended cellular effect (e.g.) using an infrared laser for the purpose of heat-shocking a cell or blue light laser radiation to induce reactive oxygen species. This, in tandem with high resolution, real-time visualization are what makes RPOC really exciting. Something from the talk I found particularly interesting was RPOC\u2019s use in drug activation. Essentially, drug molecules can be caged into an inactive form that is only activated when exposed to a certain wavelength of light, these are called photoswitchable molecules, and since RPOC shows real time activity, the drug can be activated at highly specific sites within the cell. Overall, this talk was really well laid out and showed how vast the implications of this technique were and was great exposure to the microscopy and imaging field, an area of science I am not very familiar with but am excited to learn more about!<\/span><\/p>\n ~Ismael, BMB ’28<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Ismael and Nandita approached me last spring to see if they could submit abstracts for the American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting in Chicago in August, I was a little hesitant. The meeting lined up with the first week of classes so I knew I wouldn’t be able to attend. However, I remembered back […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1880,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[795,25996,508,35898],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-conferences","category-research","category-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/pollocklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/pollocklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/pollocklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/pollocklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1880"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/pollocklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1770"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/pollocklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1777,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/pollocklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770\/revisions\/1777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/pollocklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/pollocklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/create.richmond.edu\/pollocklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}