It’s the second consecutive time that two Fordham students have received the award, which is awarded annually to about 400 natural sciences, engineering, and mathematics students. A major requirement for the scholarship is a demonstrated body of research that a student has conducted since entering college.

Lorna Ronald, Ph.D., director of the Office of Fellowship Advising, said the consecutive wins show the strength of the STEM community at Fordham.

“It’s really exciting that we’ve been able to build that up over the last couple of years,” she said. 

Combating Antibiotic Resistance

Clemente’s research explores how to design and develop peptides that can be used to influence DNA replication in bacteria, which can cause mutations that lead to antibiotic resistance. It’s a joint research project between chemistry professors Nicholas Sawyer and Elizabeth Thrall.

“My research so far this year has been looking at a peptide that has been known to inhibit the specific protein interaction involved in the replication of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which is the bacteria that causes tuberculosis,” she said. 

“It’s a naturally occurring antibiotic peptide, but I’m seeing if I can improve upon it and make it synthetically.”

A native of Washingtonville, New York, Clemente said the opportunity to do research sealed her decision to attend Fordham. She hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in biochemistry.

For Sawyer, ambitious and enthusiastic students like Clemente are invaluable.

“Having ambition and enthusiasm for [a research project]provides the resilience to deal with challenges along the way,” he said.

“She’s skyrocketed in terms of not only managing her own project, but also in providing peer mentoring to junior students in the lab.”

Targeting Tumors

Das, a biochemistry major who also works for Fordham University Emergency Medical Services, is focused on developing peptide-linked molecules to target cancer tumors. She hopes to attend medical school upon graduation.

She co-authored three papers published in academic journals. In October, she was the lead author of one about peptides designed to target cancerous lung cells that was published in the journal Molecular Diversity.

In addition to biochemistry professor Ipsita Banerjee, Das shared authorship of the paper with Mary Biggs, who earned one of last year’s Goldwater scholarships. That kind of collaboration between students is not something she expected.

“I want to give a lot of credit to Mary because this past summer, she basically taught me everything,” she said.

She also credited Banerjee for pushing her to achieve more.

“She’s just an amazing mentor,” she said. “It’s because of her motivation and her belief in me that I did as much research as I did.”

Banerjee said she’s seen Das grow tremendously. 

“One of the things that we look for in students is a willingness to put in the time, and last spring 2024, there were some techniques that Amrita needed to learn about, like cell culture,” she said.

“She came in during spring break, and we spent two whole days working on it. So she was very willing to learn, put in the effort, and stay focused.”

Lorna Ronald, Ph.D., director of the Office of Prestigious Fellowships, said the students’ early start in the lab, as well as their close collaboration with faculty, were significant factors in receiving the award, which is granted to sophomores and juniors.

“The Goldwater Foundation is looking for students who will become our nation’s leaders in STEM research, so they’re interested in students who have already made an impact, sharing their findings at conferences and in publications,” Ronald said. “Our two Goldwater scholars started undergraduate early and have great mentors. Both Dr. Ipsita Banerjee and Dr. Nicholas Sawyer have worked closely with these students to enable them to produce national quality research as undergraduates.”

Researching Natural ‘Chemo-Targeting Devices’

Biggs’s research explores how proteins (and peptides) can be designed from natural products—or molecules that are produced by living organisms such as bacteria, fungi, fish, mollusks and plants—can be used as “tumor-targeting devices.”

“The goal is to be able to specifically target therapeutics to the tumors, so that it avoids damage to non-cancer cells, and mitigate the side effects that chemotherapy is known for,” said Biggs, a junior majoring in biochemistry.

Biggs and Banerjee grew replica multi-cellular miniature tumors as models in the lab to test their newly designed molecules and examine mechanisms of drug delivery into the tumors. This summer, she’s going to continue her work, this time with ovarian tumors and “other naturally derived cancer targeting molecules.”

“It’s just been wild to be an undergraduate and to have access to these kinds of research opportunities,” she said.

Biggs joined Banerjee’s lab her first year, after going to talk with her about declaring her major.

“She is fantastic,” Banerjee said. “She was always interested in natural product work and the applications of biochemistry and chemistry. She’s a quick learner and one thing I look for in my students is ambition and passion for research. She has the ambition, the motivation, perseverance and she’s very detail oriented.”

The Role of Shapes in Chemistry

Victorio, who will earn one bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Fordham University and a second bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in chemical engineering as a part of Fordham’s 3-2 cooperative program in engineering, was nominated for the Goldwater award through Columbia.

Sawyer said that he and the students in his lab work on developing peptides—short chains of amino acids—that act as treatments and gain access to the cell’s interior.

“What Clara set out to do is help us, as a scientific community, develop a fundamental understanding of how shape plays a role in how peptides enter cells,” he said.

Victorio’s work included an accidental discovery: She set out to take a peptide that had one shape and turn it into a second type of shape, but her work showed that it can actually make a third shape as well.

“It’s really rewarding when a reaction works as expected, because it doesn’t always do that,” she said with a smile. “But, some of the results of the reactions were surprising, and they spun into these whole new avenues.”

Sawyer said that Victorio’s work is at the center of a collaboration with colleagues from the University of Missouri, where they’re continuing to study “where this third shape comes from, and what the factors are that contributed to making that happen.”

“People have known about protein interactions since the 50’s. But at the same time, these protein interactions—the ways in which we were able to target and think about them as molecular targets—have really evolved in the past decade or two,” Sawyer said.

In this faculty mini-lecture, he breaks down his research and explains how his work can make a difference.

“Protein interactions are involved in every living system and disease,” Sawyer said. “We can pick and choose what we study, and we’re trying to go after things that are important to people.”