Papers by Elmer-Rico Mojica
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African Journal of Inter/Multidisciplinary Studies
One innovative strategy that can improve higher education is undergraduate students’ engagement i... more One innovative strategy that can improve higher education is undergraduate students’ engagement in research. Mentoring is one of the few opportunities that afford extended face-to-face and one-on-one instruction. However, mentoring undergraduate students in doing research is not the same at different types of colleges and universities. This paper gives insights from my perspective on how undergraduate students are being mentored in doing research in different university/college settings, namely a premier university (University of the Philippines Los Baños), a public research university (University at Buffalo), a public senior college (York College) and a private university (Pace University). The main goal of this paper is to compare the undergraduate research structure at the four institutions. I will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each setting, emphasizing how I engaged my students to do research with emphasis at Pace University. This paper also includes the similariti...
Philippine Journal of Science
Propolis or bee glue is gaining popularity in the market as a potential source of bioactive compo... more Propolis or bee glue is gaining popularity in the market as a potential source of bioactive components that can be used in different health products. In this study, the ethanolic extracts of propolis samples from stingless bee (Tetragonula biroi Friese) colonies collected from Los Baños (in Laguna), Tayabas (in Quezon), and San Roque (in Albay) were characterized using various spectroscopic techniques such as absorbance, fluorescence, and infrared. Spectroscopic results showed differences in the chemical composition of the propolis samples. Infrared (IR) spectroscopy showed similarities and differences in terms of the functional groups present in the samples. Lastly, the phenol content of the ethanolic extracts was obtained using the FolinCiocalteu assay. Samples from Laguna yielded the highest phenolic content, followed by Albay and Quezon. Differences in chemical composition specifically in phenolic content will have an effect on the biological activities of the propolis extracts....
Journal of Curriculum and Teaching, 2021
The Billion Oyster Project and Curriculum and Community Enterprise for the Restoration of New Yor... more The Billion Oyster Project and Curriculum and Community Enterprise for the Restoration of New York Harbor with New York City Public Schools (BOP-CCERS) program is a National Science Foundation (NSF) supported initiative and collaboration of multiple institutions and organizations led by Pace University. The NSF project, Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST), had generated a large amount of data through engagement with teachers and students throughout New York City public schools. One purpose of this project is to engage with middle and high school science teachers to assist them in using project-based learning and real-world data collection in their classrooms with their students through harbor restoration initiatives. It was found that Underrepresented Minority (URM) students reported having higher levels of interest in STEM and science than did the non-URM students. While this is a success, it was found that the URM students had lower expectations for...
Proteins: Structure, Function, and Bioinformatics, 2013
The role aromatic amino acids play in the formation of amyloid is a subject of controversy. In an... more The role aromatic amino acids play in the formation of amyloid is a subject of controversy. In an effort to clarify the contribution of aromaticity to the self‐assembly of human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP)22‐29, peptide analogs containing electron donating groups (EDGs) or electron withdrawing groups (EWGs) as substituents on the aromatic ring of Phe‐23 at the para position have been synthesized and characterized using turbidity measurements in conjunction with Raman and fluorescence spectroscopy. Results indicate the incorporation of EDGs on the aromatic ring of Phe‐23 virtually abolish the ability of hIAPP22‐29 to form amyloid. Peptides containing EWGs were still capable of forming aggregates. These aggregates were found to be rich in β‐sheet secondary structure. Transmission electron microscopy images of the aggregates confirm the presence of amyloid fibrils. The observed difference in amyloidogenic propensity between peptides containing EDGs and those with EWGs appears not...
Journal of Medical Sciences, 2005
Microchimica Acta, 2014
Linear alkyl alkoxysilanes (methoxy and ethoxybased) of varying length were used in preparing tet... more Linear alkyl alkoxysilanes (methoxy and ethoxybased) of varying length were used in preparing tetracycline surface imprinted silica xerogels by the sol-gel process. The resulting xerogels were characterized in terms of binding tetracycline (TC) by using tritium-labeled TC. Results showed preferential binding in the ethoxysilane based xerogels in comparison to methoxysilane based xerogels. A computational approach using the interaction energy (IE) between TC and each alkyl alkoxysilane was deduced as a rational way of predicting the formulation that would provide the best analytical performance for a given molecularly imprinted xerogel (MIX). Hartree-Fock calculations revealed an increase in IE as the length of the carbon chain increases until an optimum value at C6 in both alkoxysilanes. This is consistent with the experimental results wherein the C6 xerogel formulation has the highest imprinting factor. These results show the potential of using computational modeling as a rational way of preparing surface imprinted materials.
Journal of Physical Chemistry & Biophysics, 2014
Journal of Medical Sciences(Faisalabad), 2005
Journal of Molecular Modeling, 2013
Different computational models were used and screened to find a rational way in selecting the app... more Different computational models were used and screened to find a rational way in selecting the appropriate functional silane monomer for the best molecular imprinted xerogel (MIX) formulation. Several functional silane monomers were used and allowed to react with a template model, tetracycline (TC). The resulting template-monomer complex molecules were first optimized and their interaction energies (IEs) were calculated using different computational methods such as semi-empirical methods, ab-initio methods, density functional theory (DFT) methods and solvent model method. The formulations used for calculation were also prepared and their performance in binding with TC was determined using tritium labeled sample. Results showed that the rankings of the different formulations varied with the different computational methods. However, rankings of the IEs of the xerogels are similar to that of the imprinting factor (IF) when HF and B3LYP at SV(P) and SVP basis set levels were used. The best imprinted xerogel, allyltriethoxysilane (AtEOS) ranked first in ten out of the 26 computational models that were screened and at all computational methods at tetramer system.
Journal of Fluorescence, 2014
Tetracyclines (TCs), broad spectrum antibiotics widely used in the prevention and treatment of in... more Tetracyclines (TCs), broad spectrum antibiotics widely used in the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, are amphoteric molecules containing several ionizable functional groups that exist predominantly as zwitterions at a given pH value. TCs are reported to undergo a wide variety of reactions at different pH values i.e. TCs form to anhydrotetracyclines at low pH, 4-epitetracyclines at pH 3-5 and isotetracyclines at high pH values. The pH-dependent absorbance and emission properties of tetracycline and its 10 analogs (4-epitetracycline, doxycyline, oxytetracycline, chlortetracycline, 4-epichlortetracycline, isochlortetracycline, methacycline, rolitetracycline, minocycline, and demeclocycline) were investigated and reported in this paper. The main focus of the study was on the pH dependent transformation of epichlortetracycline, chlortetracycline and isotetracycline at basic pH. Absorption, emission and time resolved spectroscopy were used to determine the behavior of the three TC derivatives at this condition. Increasing the buffer's ionic concentration leads to faster transformation to iCTC. A pH dependent transformation of CTC to iCTC was observed and the lifetimes of CTC and iCTC were determined to be 3.0 and 5.89 ns respectively. The distribution factor of CTC to iCTC at basic pH was also reported for the first time.
Analytical Chemistry, 2013
An automated stochastic docking program with a graphical user interface, RANDOMDOCK (RD), has bee... more An automated stochastic docking program with a graphical user interface, RANDOMDOCK (RD), has been developed to aid the development of molecularly imprinted polymers and xerogels. RD supports computations with ab initio and semiempirical quantum chemistry programs. The RD algorithms have been tested by searching for the most stable geometries of a varying number of methacrylic acid molecules interacting with nicotinamide. The optimal structures found are either as stable or more stable than those previously proposed for this molecularly imprinted polymer, illustrating that RD is capable of identifying the lowest-energy structures out of a potentially vast number of possible configurations. RD was subsequently applied to determine the most favorable binding sites between silane molecules and tetracycline (TC) as well as TC analogues. Hydrogen bonding between the templates and a silane is an important determinant of stability. Dispersion interactions are also sizable, sometimes dominant, especially between the largest silane and TC analogues not possessing a site readily available for hydrogen bonding. We highlight the importance of exploring the full intermolecular potential energy landscape when studying systems which may not afford highly specific interactions.
32nd Annual Convention of the Chemical Society of the Philippines,, Southern Tagalog Chapter, 2003
ABSTRACT: In artificial chemistry (ACHEM), the objects (molecules) are data and the interactions ... more ABSTRACT: In artificial chemistry (ACHEM), the objects (molecules) are data and the interactions (reactions) among them are driven by an algorithm. An object expresses its duality as it can appear as a machine (operator) or as a data (operand). Thus an object can process other objects or it can be processed. This dualism of objects enables us to implicitly define a constructive computational procedure using chemistry as metaphor to solve complex real-world problems. In this paper we introduce ACHEM as a distributed ...
Philippine Journal of Crop Science December, 2004
Essential oils are complex mixtures of compounds that are produced in specialized glands within v... more Essential oils are complex mixtures of compounds that are produced in specialized glands within various aromatic plants. These oils can be harbored in leaves, stems, seeds, wood, barks, resins, fruits, roots and needles of vascular and non-vascular plants. These oils contain the chemical components responsible for the distinguishing odor of some flora. Essential oils are used in industry for the essence and flavoring of all kinds of finished consumer products. They are also popular in aromatherapy. Buchbauer & Jirovetz (1994) ...
formerly Philippine Agriculturist, Jun 1, 2007
(English) Amperometric biosensors for bonded glucose were fabricated using screen printed carbon ... more (English) Amperometric biosensors for bonded glucose were fabricated using screen printed carbon elecrode bulk modified with manganese dioxide onto which glucosidase and glucose oxidase were immobilized by Nafion film entrapment. Three methods of enzyme immobilization were performed (layering, mixing and sequencing of enzyme solutions). The analytical performance of the biosensor prepared by different enzyme immobilization methods was assessed in a flow injection mode using three sugar ...
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Papers by Elmer-Rico Mojica