All you ever wanted to know about lipopeptides but were afraid to ask

February 10, 2009

By hammersmith

Emily Ricq, UA undergraduate, winner of an HHMI award

When Emily Ricq (’05) went to France last year, it wasn’t just for the Mona Lisa and french fries.

She was in Paris at the Université Pierre et Maire Curie, where she was researching the properties of special lipopeptides–organic compounds–that can penetrate cells.

For her research, Emily has now won the 2009 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science for Life Undergraduate Creativity Award. Among 150 entrants for the award, she was one of five winners of HHMI awards for science.

“Emily is a great student to have around and is challenging in the best sense of the word,” said Lynne A. Oland, a research scientist in the UA’s Arizona Research Laboratories Division of Neurobiology, where Emily continues to conduct her research. “She is persistent, focused and loves what she is doing.”

You can read more about Emily’s work here.