Chem Club Hosts First Q&A Session For Department Seminar Speaker At CSUN

Over the last year, we (the CSUN Chem Club) have been working hard to become an established club representing the chemistry students at CSUN.  Our efforts have been multi-faceted through different avenues.  Recently, we held a 'research panel' discussion which was popular and will be written about in the near future.  We were excited to host our first 'Question & Answer' session with incoming (outside) research faculty members to learn more about them.  Our first speaker was Dr Jevgenij Raskatov from the University of California at Santa Cruz.  Below is a brief description of the wonderful discussion.



Dr. Raskatov was asked a couple of great questions.  One of which was to briefly layout the timeline of his journey in chemistry starting with his undergraduate adventure up through his faculty position.  Originally, Dr. Raskatov wanted to pursue a profession in music in Heidelberg (Germany).  He is a native of Moscow, Russia.  Upon arrival in Heidelberg, he discovered the difficulty with pursuing a professional career in as a musician.  This led him to try to discover what other topic of study he might be interested in by enrolling into the University of Heidelberg.



Originally, he started out as a 'biology major'.  Over time and under the influence of a few mentors, he discovered that he was more comfortable with the molecular description of biological processes. Therefore, he chose to study molecular biology and found computational chemistry to be the instrument of choice by which to pursue a career in chemistry.


His current research focuses on the study of "aggregation prone (amyloidegenic) polypeptides" which play a pivotal role in certain neurological disorders, namely, Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's Disease. He considers his field to be CHEMICAL NEUROSCIENCE. His early work in computational chemistry provided him with the understanding of chirality which led to his recent studies of enantiopure D- or L- or racemic Aβ42.

Thanks to Dr. Raskatov for spending time with undergraduates here at CSUN!

Friday, December 1, 2017