Chase Sigler Summary

Chase Sigler, a senior double major in chemistry and human biology, recently presented the chemistry research he has been working on for the last three semesters at a conference hosted by the American Chemical Society.
Jerry Easdon, professor of chemistry, said around sixteen thousand people typically attend the ACS conference.
Close to two thousand of those in attendance are undergraduate, Easdon said and “many of them are presenting their senior research at a poster session, just like Chase did.”
Sigler said the goal of his research was to “synthesize interesting molecules which could be anti-biotic precursors.”
Singlar said much of his research revolved around structures known as beta-lactam rings.
“It's a four-member ring and has a nitrogen
in it,” Singlar said. “Penicillin has one of these rings in it. It was the first antibiotic that was ever discovered and a really big deal. Once they found out that it had that (four-member ring) structure, people started to look into ways to synthesize it.”
One of the big problems with penicillin, Singlar said, is that many organisms are resistant to it.
“What these bacteria do if they make beta-lactamase,” Sigler said, “which essentially takes that four-member ring and tears it apart.”
Sigler said his research led him to placing fluorine on a beta-lactam ring in order to make it resistant to beta-lactamase.
“The thing about fluorine is it’s kind of a bully in the molecular world,” Sigler said. “It is very electronegative, so it repels nucleophiles and beta-lactamase happened to be nucleophiles. So it repels the things that would normally break apart the beta-lactam ring. Our theory in the whole thing is that if we can add fluorine to these beta-lactam rings it will make better antibiotics that are able to still work in the presence of beta-lactam resistant organisms.”
Siglar said the process he uses to make these molecules is efficient, which makes it marketable to those within his field.
“Chemists are always looking for cheaper faster ways of making molecules. An interesting thing about this synthesis is that it's very conservative as far as the molecule. There's nothing wasted, or very little wasted,” Sigler said. “Most of the original atoms that you synthesize end up in the final product, which is good. You end up not losing a lot of these expensive molecules.”
Siglar said from the pharmaceutical production standpoint, this is desirable.
As far as the significance of his research, Siglar said he was able to accomplish “one piece of a very big puzzle.”
“A beta-lactam ring by itself doesn't do a whole lot,” Siglar said. “My research is valuable in that I have contributed a small piece to the scientific community within the field of study of beta-lactams . . . No, I didn't make a pill that you can take that is going to be resistant to beta lactam resistant organisms, but we put a chink in their armor.”
Siglar said more valuable than his contribution to the research community was the preparation it gave him for furthering his education.
By learning to use both advance tools and techniques in his research, Easdon said Siglar will be able to enter his graduate program at with a more advance skillset than many of his peers in the same program.
“I have applied at Missouri S&T for Graduate Studies and there is a chemist up there that does organofluorine chemistry, which is what this project is based in,” Siglar said.
“He actually looks at protecting groups for neurons related to Alzheimer's disease and he is very interested in the fact that I know how to work with fluorine. Fluorine is a pretty nasty element. There are certain lab techniques that you have to learn to deal with it. And in addition, my reaction had to be anhydrous, so without water. If you think about it there is water in the air, so keeping that all contained it's going to be very valuable for me in graduate school and I've got some interest based on what my research was.”
Easdon said Siglar was able to use a lot of his own ideas in his research.
“I think it was beyond what most undergraduate get to do,” Easdon said. “The amount of effort that he put in and the amount of scientific ability that Chase has is pretty high, and he was able to accomplish things that most undergraduate senior chemistry majors haven't been able to do.”
Most undergraduate chemistry programs don’t include research into their curriculum, Siglar said, and that is one of the areas that sets the College’s chemistry program apart from other institutions. He said this also helps students like himself be accepted to graduate
schools.
Siglar said he is thankful to the chemistry program and his professors for the high level of education they provide their students.
“I would like to say that I'm not the only one who has done this. This is part of the chemistry program at College of the Ozarks. Every year we produce graduates that do a research project and go on to ACS to present,” Siglar said. “So I think more than just shining the light on me, it should be on our program.”