Robert Hoey
September 4, 2007
Robert Hoey, an NIU graduate student in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, recently won an award for outstanding research at the 2007 Current Trends in Microcalorimetry Conference in Boston.
The award included a trophy and a prize of $1,000.
Hoey presented a poster describing his research to an audience of international scientists from both academia and industry.
The research poster was co-authored by Hoey’s adviser, Professor James R. Horn in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
The conference focused on applications of microcalorimetry in the life sciences. Microcalorimetry is a technique that measures the heat of chemical reactions, providing valuable information for the discovery, design and development of new drugs and biotherapeutics.
Hoey and Horn investigated the molecular basis of recognition of an in vitro matured antibody and used microcalorimetry to reveal important insights into the mechanism of antibody binding.
Most of the research presented was performed by Hoey while he was an undergraduate honors capstone student in Horn’s lab. The judges of the poster competition were some of the top biophysical scientists in academia.