Medicinal Chemistry Students Receive Travel Awards

We’re happy to announce that four of our students recently won travel awards to facilitate their attendance at important conferences and meetings this year! These awards are an important piece of financial support for students that allow them to stay on the cutting edge of their research discipline, network with the best and brightest of their peers, and connect with professional organizations, mentors, and more.

Jerrett Holdaway from the Georg Lab was one of only two recipients of the joint YMCC-YSN Grant to attend EFMC- ACSMEDI Medicinal Chemistry Frontiers 2026, taking place this June in Dublin, Ireland. This honor comes with a guaranteed poster presentation at Frontiers, as well as the opportunity to apply to give an oral talk. The bulk of Jerrett’s research focuses on the discovery of orthosteric and allosteric inhibitors and PROTAC degraders of the testis-specific serine/threonine kinases (TSSKs).

Bryan Magana from the Wagner Lab was selected to receive a $800 travel award to the 39th International Conference on Antiviral Research (ICAR). ICAR is the oldest and largest antiviral conference in the world and is devoted to the promotion of antiviral drug design for all classes of viruses. This year’s conference will be held in Prague, Czech Republic. Bryan will be presenting his recent work on novel anti-Dengue proTides.

Bidisha Sarkar and Isabella Jacobsen, both Chemistry PhD students in the Georg Lab, each revied a unique award that supported their attendance at the ACS National Meeting this spring in Atlanta. Bidisha was the recipient of two awards: one from ACS MEDI and one from our Minnesota Local Section of the ACS. Bella received a Lilly Emerging Talent Award, co-sponsored by the ACS Women Chemists Committee (WCC) and Eli Lilly and Company. We are very fortunate to have both wonderful students under the tutelage of Dr. Georg.

Congratulations to all these students. Well done!