Rachel the REU
What was Rachel's dream school?
VANDYYYYY
This Japanese chemist shared the 2010 Nobel Prize for palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling and developed the reaction between organoboron compounds and organic halides.
Akira Suzuki
This reagent reduces aldehydes and ketones to alcohols but generally leaves esters and carboxylic acids unchanged.
sodium borohydride, NaBH₄
toluene
110°C
This pathway breaks glucose into pyruvate while producing ATP and NADH.
Glycolysis
How many pets does Rachel have and what are their names
2, Midge and Rocky
This chemist won the prize in 1913 for his research in coordination chemistry.
Alfred Werner (you should remember this one)
These conditions convert a primary alcohol into an aldehyde through a low-temperature oxidation using DMSO, oxalyl chloride, and a tertiary amine.
Swern Oxidation
diethyl ether
34.5°C
This equation relates the pH of a buffer to the pKa and the ratio of conjugate base to weak acid.
The Henderson–Hasselbalch equation
Rachel had four different jobs between her freshman year of high school now. What were they?
Worked at Chick-fil-A, worked at a prom dress store, worked in the Elon Mail room, Substitute teacher.
(Will also accept tutoring or babysitting)
his chemist shared the 2005 Nobel Prize for developing olefin metathesis and is known for the ruthenium catalysts that bear his name.
Robert H. Grubbs
This bulky hydride reagent can reduce an ester to an aldehyde when the reaction is carefully controlled at low temperature.
DIBAL-H
acetonitrile
81.65°C
Insulin binds to this class of cell-surface receptor, triggering autophosphorylation and downstream signaling through proteins such as IRS and Akt.
receptor tyrosine kinase
The names of Rachel's three brothers (bonus 100 points if you know her sister-in-laws name and an extra 100 if you know which brother she is married to)
Joseph, Aaron, and Levi
Bonus: Bailey, married to Joe
This chemist has won two Nobel Prizes in Chemistry—one for asymmetric catalysis in 2001 and another for click chemistry in 2022.
Karl Barry Sharpless
This palladium-catalyzed reaction couples an aryl halide with an amine using a base and a phosphine ligand.
Buchwald-Hartwig
Dimethylformamide (DMF)
153°C
This mitochondrial enzyme complex converts pyruvate into acetyl-CoA and requires five cofactors: TPP, lipoamide, CoA, FAD, and NAD⁺.
pyruvate dehydrogenase complex
What state was Rachel born in?
Delaware
This Harvard chemist received the 1990 Nobel Prize for developing the theory and methodology of organic synthesis, particularly retrosynthetic analysis.
Elias James Corey
An α,β-unsaturated carbonyl is treated with a Gilman reagent to favor this mode of carbon–carbon bond formation rather than direct attack at the carbonyl carbon.
1,4-conjugate addition
Azeotrope of toluene and water
84°C
In the liver during fasting, this hormone activates PKA, lowering fructose-2,6-bisphosphate. What is the name of this hormone and what is the function
Glucagon - inhibits glycolysis and glycogen synthesis, while stimulating gluconeogenesis and glycogen breakdown.