Organic Chemistry Buffs

[quote]HoratioSandoval wrote:
How about throwing in some CSI type of stuff? I hear the kids like that kind of thing nowadays. You could give a really basic intro into GC, mass spec and NMR.[/quote]

We have several complete electrophoresis set-ups, but the anatomy teacher usually does forensics the last month.

How about this:

Turn that wintergreen flavor in wintergreen gum into asprin. It would only take about an hour to do.

[quote]Ulaf wrote:
How about this:

Turn that wintergreen flavor in wintergreen gum into asprin. It would only take about an hour to do.[/quote]

Looks like you would need a hood, and the reagents and glassware would be kind of expensive. Might be cool to show the reaction on the board or a handout though.

How about a short talk on different types of fats? Trans fats and fish oil are in the news all the time now, but your kids would have no idea as to what they actually are. Maybe they’d cut down on the McDonald’s as well.

hey I havent had time to read through this whole thread,

but I think the most widely accepted nomenclature for CH2OHCH2CH2CHOOH is 4-hydroxy-butanoic-acid.

(no need to put 1-butanoic acid, since the numbering always starts at the carboxyl group carbon)

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
HoratioSandoval wrote:
How about throwing in some CSI type of stuff? I hear the kids like that kind of thing nowadays. You could give a really basic intro into GC, mass spec and NMR.

We have several complete electrophoresis set-ups, but the anatomy teacher usually does forensics the last month.
[/quote]

It needn’t be strictly electrophoresis. I had this done in an epidemiology (the forensics of disease) class to demonstrate spread of disease:

5 bags (or any number), all have white powder, say talcum, except one. The last bag has corn starch. Five students work the powder into the skin of one hand (one bag each). These five students shake hands with five more (record the hand shakes), and then those five shake hands with five more. The last five students wipe their “shaking hand” on a filter paper. All five filter papers are exposed to iodine vapors (~5-10 min.). Those with talc remain white(ish), those with cornstarch will have black splotches (reducing sugars, same premise as the silver bottles only with iodine). Using the chemical data and empirical records you can figure out which person had the “dirty” bag. I’ve seen this work with as many as 3 “dirty” individuals, with 3 levels and 3 handshakes per level, with people freely shaking hands (not groups of 5, but one group of ~25). I don’t recommend this level of elucidational complexity for 9th graders though (we were generating computational models). Although, the meticulous recording of observations and ability to think critically is important throughout the sciences.

Electrophoresis is good for DNA forensic demonstrations, but forensics existed back long before DNA technology (Back when ‘the famous’ Dr. Watson worked with Holmes instead of Crick).

[quote]HoratioSandoval wrote:
Ulaf wrote:
How about this:

Turn that wintergreen flavor in wintergreen gum into asprin. It would only take about an hour to do.

Looks like you would need a hood, and the reagents and glassware would be kind of expensive. Might be cool to show the reaction on the board or a handout though.[/quote]

I actually have 2 hoods in my room, a $750 budget and about $1,000 in lab fees.

We have also done micro-melting points with some organics (stearic acid and palmitic acid).

Any idea if I could take protein powder, soak it in an enzyme broth and the electrophorese the amino acids to see what’s there or something like that. Also, I was wondering if free form amino acids pills dissolved in water would be optically active since they are all the L form?

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
HoratioSandoval wrote:
Ulaf wrote:
How about this:

Turn that wintergreen flavor in wintergreen gum into asprin. It would only take about an hour to do.

Looks like you would need a hood, and the reagents and glassware would be kind of expensive. Might be cool to show the reaction on the board or a handout though.

I actually have 2 hoods in my room, a $750 budget and about $1,000 in lab fees.

We have also done micro-melting points with some organics (stearic acid and palmitic acid).

Any idea if I could take protein powder, soak it in an enzyme broth and the electrophorese the amino acids to see what’s there or something like that. Also, I was wondering if free form amino acids pills dissolved in water would be optically active since they are all the L form?

[/quote]

Are you looking to reduce the protein to it’s constituent AAs all at once or sequentially? Enzymes may or may not be the best way to do what you’re asking.

Edman’s is the popular method for sequencing, but only does (to my knowledge) <100 residues and requires some specialized reagents. But it (IMO) doesn’t sound like what you’re looking for.

Concentrated acid w/ heat sounds like what you need to hydrolyze the proteins, but you need an IE column to subsequently separate and identify the AA. The monomers all behave largely the same in an electrophoresis gel.

Some references that may help:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?call=bv.View..ShowSection&rid=stryer.section.483

If you think Edman’s will work or have access to IE that’s cool. otherwise, this may be too complex. Unless another forumite knows more than I do. As for the L-form AAs, I believe you are correct except for glycine (no stereocenter), threonine, and isoleucine (both with 2 centers). It has been awhile since my spectroscopy days though.