In his element

New medical and other biochem testing devices need to separate and sort molecules using capillary electrophoresis, a developing technology that Ryan Ahern '14 discussed at the Undergraduate Research Conference at Union College in September. In his research with chemistry professor Kimberly Frederick, Ahern laser-leached a tiny stream of dye at constant intervals to help him monitor its flow velocity inside the thinner-than-hair tubes where electrophoresis needs to work flawlessly in new generations of testing devices.