Global advancements in sciences, together with digital transformation, continue to accelerate innovation, significantly impacting all sectors of the economy. Velocity Science companies lead the way, helping thousands of patients, combating production shortages, and solving accessibility issues and sustainability for long-term solutions.
The Amit & Meena Chakma Awards for Exceptional Teaching by a Student recognize up to four students from across the University of Waterloo for excellence in teaching of all kinds (e.g., teaching assistant, laboratory demonstrator, sessional lecturer) by registered students.
This year, two of the four winners were from the Faculty of Science.
Pharmaceutical drugs often take advantage of a specific shape in order to bind to the biological target. Some molecules, however, can exist with two versions that are mirror images of each other, similar to a left-handed and right-handed pair of gloves. In the body, often only one of the two molecules is an active pharmaceutical drug due to the difference in shape.
In the field of chemistry, one challenge that students commonly encounter is difficulty visualizing molecules, their arrangements and relationship between atoms in space. While there are some tools already being used to address this difficulty, they each have some disadvantages as well. Molecular model kits are bulky, expensive, require students to spend valuable time building each molecule, and are also limited by the number of pieces in the set.
