Fall 2026 WCC Merck Research Awards Symposium

WCC Merck Research Awards Symposium

Monday, August 24, 2026 • 2:00 – 5:55 pm CT

McCormick Place Convention Center, A2 – SOUTH HALL ChemPod 2

Organizer: Anna Sromek • Presiders: Amelie Dion and Anna Sromek

2:00 pm Introductory remarks

2:05 pm Leveraging cell-curface sugar mimicry to target and understand tau–heparanase crosstalk in Alzheimer’s disease

April Sweet Tapayan, Wayne State University

2:25 pm Single-molecule DNA tweezers enable programmable control of enzyme activity via arbitrary molecular cues

Sara Nixon, University of Texas at Austin

2:45 pm Evolution of a Strategty for the Total Synthesis of Stephadiamine

Ana Victoria Serna, University of Pennsylvania

3:05 pm Macrocyclic cyclopentadiene monomers enable molecular-level control in dynamic Diels–Alder networks

Komal Na, University of California Santa Barbara

3:25 pm Development of a photoacoustic probe for the detection of HOCl-positive Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Julia McAfee, University of Virginia

3:45 pm Intermission

4:10 pm Harnessing Collaboration and Enabling Technologies to Move Fast and Break Boundaries in Drug Discovery

Dani Schultz, Merck & Co Inc

4:50 pm Photochemical Reactivity of a High-Spin Fe(IV)-Oxo

Lucy Huffman, University of Rochester

5:10 pm Deep quantitative mass spectrometry proteomics to understand lateral embryonic development

Laura Rodriguez, University of Maryland College Park

5:30 pm Elucidating the molecular mechanism of interleukin-7 potentiation by a neutralizing anti-cytokine monoclonal antibody

Nhu Quach, Institution

5:50 pm Concluding Remarks

Merck is acknowledged for its support of the WCC Merck Research Awards program

WCC Chair:

Indu Kheterpal

WCC Program Chair:

Danniebelle Haase

Visit www.acswcc.org for more information about the Women Chemists Committee or send an email to WCC@acs.org. Join us in celebrating 100 years with WCC in 2027!