Prof and student to conduct research at the University of Iowa

Dr. Karissa Carlson, assistant professor of chemistry at Northwestern College, and junior Alex Menning have been awarded a grant to conduct biomedical research at the University of Iowa’s Carver College of Medicine during June and July.

Carlson’s FUTURE in Biomedicine Fellowship is designed for faculty at smaller colleges in Iowa that do not offer graduate programs. It is intended to form new connections between the state’s scientists and the University of Iowa.

The fellowship provides a stipend for Carlson and covers all of her research expenses. It also provides a stipend and housing for Menning, a biology-health professions major from Alton, Iowa.

Carlson and Menning will work with Dr. Marc Wold in Iowa’s biochemistry department, learning how to conduct fluorescence-based assays to investigate protein-protein and/or protein-DNA interactions. Carlson plans to bring those techniques back to Northwestern so she can begin a fluorescence-based research project using the college’s newly acquired fluorescence spectrometer.

Carlson, a member of Northwestern’s faculty since 2007, earned a doctorate in biochemistry at the University of Iowa in 2008. She completed her undergraduate studies at Northwestern in 2003.