Professor Jen Heemstra

Professor Jen Heemstra
Director of Faculty Recruiting and Development
Department of Chemistry
Emory University
Host: Professor William Pomerantz

Abstract

Harnessing biomolecular recognition in the lab and building resilience in the classroom

Nucleic acids are exquisitely adept at molecular recognition and assembly, making them foundational to life processes and enabling researchers to harness them for applications beyond their canonical biological roles. As an example, aptamers have been evolved in nature to regulate cellular processes and can also be generated in the laboratory and utilized for biosensing and therapeutic applications. We have leveraged the molecular recognition capability of aptamers to generate chiral sensors for high-throughput measurement of small-molecule enantiopurity, thus addressing a critical bottleneck in biocatalysis. We demonstrate fluorescence-based enantiopurity measurement in a microplate format and via flow cytometry, and have developed a method for the direct evolution of new aptamer sensors.

…And we’ve encountered a lot of failure along the way. As researchers, we recognize that failure is both an unavoidable and necessary part of discovery, and that overcoming failure requires resilience. This led us to ask the question: when and how do undergraduate STEM students develop the resilience they need to persist through failure? To address this question, we founded FLAMEnet as a nationwide collaborative aimed at developing, implementing, and disseminating educational interventions that leverage psychological frameworks to promote retention and success of students in STEM.

Jen Heemstra

Jen Heemstra received her B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, Irvine, in 2000. At Irvine, she performed undergraduate research investigating the folding of synthetic beta-sheet mimics, which instilled in her a love of supramolecular chemistry. She then moved to the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she completed her Ph.D. in 2005 studying the reactivity of pyridine-functionalized phenylene ethynylene cavitands. After a brief time in industry as a medicinal chemist, she moved to Harvard University to pursue postdoctoral research exploring mechanisms for templated nucleic acid synthesis. Jen began her independent career in 2010 and is currently a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Emory University. Research in the Heemstra lab is focused on harnessing the molecular recognition and self-assembly properties of nucleic acids and proteins for applications in biosensing and bioimaging. In addition to her research, Jen is also actively engaged in science communication, outreach, and advocacy via her social media presence, and professional development seminars and workshops. Outside of work, Jen enjoys spending time with her husband and two sons, as well as rock climbing, cycling, and running.