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December 2025
The Franz lab welcomes two new students to the group! Welcome Alexie Clover and Corrina Smith! We are so excited to work with you, and we can’t wait to see what awesome chemistry research you will get up to in the Franz lab.
This month, graduate student Noah Brodsky passed his qualify exam! Congrats Noah for this accomplishment, and now you are officially a Ph.D. Candidate!
August 2025
Several Franz group members, as well as our awesome summer scholars, visited our collaborators, the McCarroll Lab at UC San Francisco to hand over compounds for testing, and see the awesome research in action! It was amazing to see the zebrafish up close, and the McCarroll Lab’s set up!
This month we celebrated the awesome research our three amazing summer scholars achieved. Meet our summer students and learn about their Franz lab research projects:
Jorge Aguilar – Visiting from Fresno State University – Jorge synthesized CBD analogs, and monitored and analyzed reaction progress and regioselectivity utilizing in-situ ReactIR. Thanks to the NIH Bridges to the Doctorate Program, Jorge was able to dive in to research this summer! Way to go Jorge!
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Ebube Agwaramgbo – Visiting from Xavier University of Louisiana – Ebube worked on the silyl lipid nanoparticle project with graduate student Leah Patterson, synthesizing and characterizing novel silyl lipids and investigating their properties for use in medicinal chemistry. Thanks to the University of California Office of the President for funding the CCBGAP program to bring Ebube to us this summer! Ebube’s work was celebrated during the program poster session, and research talks. Congrats Ebube!
Micah Welton – Visiting from Xavier University of Louisiana – Micah worked on our group’s CBD analog project where she worked on the synthesis of novel CBD derivatives and interpreted data from our collaborators at UCSF! Thanks to the University of California Office of the President for funding the CCBGAP program, and huge congrats to Micah for her poster and research talk presentation! Go Micah!
July 2025
The Franz lab is on a publication roll this month! Congrats to graduate students Leah Patterson and David Coppage for their new publication, “Engineered Silyl Lipids to Modulate Liposome and Lipid Nanoparticle Properties for mRNA Delivery“. This paper has tons of amazing data, including super cool cryo-TEM and fluorescent microscopy images.
It’s official! The newest Franz Lab publication “Multifunctional chiral silanol ligands for enantioselective catalysis” was chosen as the Pick of the Week by the Royal Society of Chemistry. Congrats to Franz Lab graduate students Dr. Yun-Pu Chang and Kevin Blanco-Herrero, it is awesome to see your hard work come to fruition and be highlighted by RSC! We encourage everyone to check out the paper to learn more about the power of silanols in enantioselective catalysis!
June 2025
Undergraduate student Afnaan Waqas was selected as a summer fellow at the Institute for Psychedelics and Neurotherapeutics at UC Davis. Afnaan will spend half his time this summer working in the Franz Lab and half his time working with the IPN. Congrats Afnaan, what an amazing opportunity!
Graduate student Kevin Blanco-Herrero attended the 49th National Organic Chemistry Symposium in Troy, NY. He presented a poster “Silanols – From Ligand Design in Enantioselective Catalysis to Blue Light Reactions“. Great job Kevin on the poster presentation and for representing Franz Lab research!
Graduate student Hannah McFadden attended the 2025 Empowering Women in Organic Chemistry Conference in Chicago, IL. She presented a poster “Progress Towards Using Organosilanol Ligands for Catalysis with Earth Abundant and Transition Metals“, and had a great time making new connections, networking and learning!
Our amazing undergraduate student Wendy Tran graduated this month with a B.S. in Chemistry from UC Davis. Wendy is headed to graduate school this Fall at UC Irvine. Congrats on this accomplishment Wendy!
This month graduate student Adilene Bernal-Sánchez obtained her Ph.D. in Chemistry from UC Davis. Huge congrats to Ady for this accomplishment, and we wish you all the best in your new role as Visiting Assistant Professor.
May 2025
Graduate student James Vesto attended the 54th North American Silicon Symposium in Ontario, Canada. He presented an awesome poster and gave a talk, “Design of Silanol-Containing Transition Metal-Chelating Ligands for Asymmetric Catalysis”. James had a great time at the symposium, and was glad to connect with awesome silicon chemists, like Michael A. Brook.
Congrats to undergraduate student Wendy Tran for her exceptional talk at the 2025 Richard Larock Conference.
April 2025
This month Franz group members Leah Patterson, Kevin Blanco-Herrero, Afnaan Waqas, and Wendy Tran attended the Chemical Biology in the Bay Area Day hosted by UC Berkeley. Graduate student Leah Patterson gave an amazing talk “Structurally Diverse Silyl Lipids to Modulate Lipid Nanoparticle Properties”.
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Amazing news alert! Graduate student Adilene Bernal Sánchez has accepted a position as Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Pomona College. Ady is finishing up her Ph.D. dissertation and will starting a new chapter as a Professor this Fall. We are all so excited and proud of Ady for this amazing accomplishment and wish her the best!
March 2025
Congratulations to Tigré Pressley for his awesome departmental seminar, “Synthesis & Development of Silyl-lipid CBD Analogues”. Tigré’s family was also able to attend and it was lovely to see them!
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February 2025
Congratulations to James Vesto for giving a wonderful departmental seminar on “Design and Convergent Synthesis of Amino Amide Silanol Ligands for Asymmetric N-H Insertion Catalysis”.
The highlight of this month was the 25th Anniversary of the R. Bryan Miller Symposium at the University of California Davis, in which many notable speakers, including two Nobel Laureates, Dr. Jennifer Doudna and Dr. Frances Arnold gave amazing and inspirational talks. Many Franz group members attended and presented posters and gave one-minute “flash talks”. Pictured left to right: undergraduate Wendy Tran, Leah Patterson, Ady Bernal Sánchez, Kevin Blanco-Herrero, and undergraduate Afnaan Waqas.
Several Franz group members won awards for their posters. Congratulations to Ady Bernal Sánchez for winning the ACS Sacramento Poster Award for graduate students, and Wendy Tran for winning the ACS Sacramento Poster Award for undergraduate students. Congratulations to Leah Patterson for winning the Royal Society of Chemistry Chemical Biology Poster Award.
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January 2025
Happy New Year! This month we officially said goodbye to Dr. Jacob Dalton, who is starting his postdoc at UTSA soon, and we had our annual meeting to discuss visions, goal setting and dreams for 2025.
Kevin Blanco-Herrero and Afnaan Waqas spent some time running deuterium experiments on the 800 MHz instrument (left).