ASDRP - Aspiring Scholars Directed Research Program

Tomorrow, March 21 from 9:30am - 1:30 pm we have our Bi-Annual Research Symposium & Expo Conference. All are welcome to attend but you must register in advance and bring your e-ticket with you at check-In. Over 100 original scientific research posters will be on view and 50 research talks will be given by out incredible team of scientists and high school student researcher. Join us and sign up to attend on our Expo Webpage.

ASDRP Spring 2026 Research Symposium & Expo Research Symposium & Expo Saturday, March 21, 2026 9:00 AM - 1:30 PM @ Mission College Gary G. Gillmor and Family Academic Center

Congrats to high school senior Xina Wang and ASDRP chemist Edward Njoo for their latest application note with Nanalysis on the synthesis of carmofur optimized by 19F NMR!

Good read ->https://shorturl.at/htuBZ

Nanalysis & Xina Wang from AspiringScholarsDirectedResearchProgram () collaboration application note - 🤓Benchtop 19F nuclear
magnetic resonance ( ) spectroscopy enabled kinetic
studies and optimization of the syntheses of carmofur

Students from ASDRP are here at In Indianapolis presenting their research on labdane diterpenoids!

Our latest student publication is online at ACS Omega! A huge congratulations to Rosie Chen (Wilcox '24), Pratyush Singh (American '23), Sarah Su (Los Altos '23), Selin Kocalar (Leigh '22, MIT '26), Xina Wang (Amador '23), Neha Mandava (Santa Clara '22, UCLA '26), Srishti Venkatesan (Leigh '24), Adrienne Ferguson (Prospect '23), Aishi Rao (Mission San Jose '22, UC Berkeley '26), and Emma Le (Amador Valley '22, UCLA '26), lab technician Casey Rojas, and ASDRP scientist and organic chemist Edward Njoo. Nanalysis American Chemical Society

Synthesis + 19F NMR spectroscopy + Phys Org + DFT calculations + bio active small molecules!

Link to full Article: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsomega.3c00290 - "Benchtop 19F nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy provides mechanistic insight into the Biginelli condensation towards the chemical synthesis of novel trifluorinated dihydro- and tetrahydropyrimidinones as antiproliferative agents."

Link to Supporting Information - four hundred pages! -https://pubs.acs.org/doi/suppl/10.1021/acsomega.3c00290/suppl_file/ao3c00290_si_001.pdf

Hybrid Quantum-Classical Generative Adversarial Network for synthesizing chemically feasible molecules | Journal of Emerging Investigators JEI is a scientific journal for middle and high school scientists

ASDRP coffee and conversation this morning. We love our ASDRP parents. Thank you for supporting your budding researchers in their development as scientists and explorers.

Congratulations to high school Junior Lorelei Xia (Irvington ‘24), senior Zachary Bashkin (COIL ‘23) and sophomore Sanjana Vadapalli (Foothill ‘25) for their inventorship on a patent with ASDRP scientists Akira Yamamoto and Edward Njoo, and our collaborators in industry. Way to go at the Peptalk conference 2023 in San Diego!

New Manuscript! Congratulations to ASDRP students Rosie Chen (Wilcox High ‘24), Pratyush Singh (American ‘23), Sarah Su (Los Altos ‘23), Xina Wang (Amador Valley ‘23) Srishti Venkatesan (Leigh ‘24), Adrienne Ferguson (Prospect ‘23) and ASDRP Alum Selin Kocalar (Leigh ‘22, MIT ‘26), Neha Mandava (Santa Clara ‘22, UCLA ‘26), Aishi Rao (Mission San Jose ‘22, UC Berkeley ‘26) and Emma Le (Amador Valley ‘22, UCLA ‘26) and ASDRP staffer Casey Rojas and organic chemist Edward Njoo for a new preprint on using Nanalysis benchtop NMR spectrometers to investigate the reaction mechanism and optimize the yield of a process that is used to synthesize anti cancer small molecules!

Read the full ChemRXiv preprint here: https://chemrxiv.org/engage/chemrxiv/article-details/63905b9b04bc6600d60b2b1c

Over 90 researchers and their advisors are attending SCCUR Pepperdine University today. An amazing conference and show case for ASDRP. Very proud of you all!

Congratulations to Sahar Jahanikia and the Jahanikia lab for presenting their research this week at the 2022 Society for Neuroscience (SfN) conference!

Find out more about the Jahanikia lab at https://www.jneurolab.org

Congratulations to Xina Wang (Amador ‘23) and ASDRP alumni Julia Vu (Quarry Lane ‘22; Stanford University Chemistry ‘26) and Charissa Luk (Bishop O’Dowd ‘22; Johns Hopkins Bioengineering ‘26) for their recent preprint publication on ChemRXiv describing an improved chemical synthesis of Carmofur, an important anti cancer drug later identified to be a potent inhibitor of SARS-CoV-2. Thanks to Nanalysis for supporting this work in describing the utility of benchtop NMR spectroscopy for real time reaction monitoring!

Read more here:

Benchtop 19F nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy enabled kinetic studies and optimization of the synthesis of carmofur Carmofur, a 5-fluorouracil derivative, was initially developed as an antineoplastic agent to treat colorectal cancer. Through drug repurposing efforts, it has been identified as a potent covalent inhibitor of the main protease of SARS-CoV-2 (Mpro), making it a promising therapeutic agent against COV...