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Westport man receives first joint Ph.D. from pair of
UMass departments
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| The Herald News
Staff |
February
12, 2002 |
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| Westport resident Brian Blanchette, son of
Norman T. and Freida A. Blanchette, is the first recipient of the
joint Ph.D. degree between the Department of Chemistry and
Biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and the
Department of Chemistry at the University of Massachusetts at
Lowell. Blanchette lives in Dartmouth with his wife, Darlene, and
their son, Benjamin. |
The program, initiated in 1995, came to final fruition when
Brian became the first graduate student at UMass Dartmouth to join
it. While conducting undergraduate research in Professor Bal Ram
Singh's laboratory, Blanchette explored the possibility of employing
an enzyme from quahogs to detoxify PCB contamination in the New
Bedford Harbor. His dissertation topic, "An Enzyme-Based
Dechlorination of PCBs: Glutathione-S-Transferase from the Northern
Quahog, Mercinaria mercinaria, as a Promising Candidate," was
defended on December 5, 2001, at UMass Lowell. Blanchette's
dissertation was under the direction of Ram Singh and Assistant
Professor Yuegang Zuo, from UMass Dartmouth and David Ryan and
Eugene Barry, professors at UMass Lowell.
The joint program
allows a seamless transfer of credits from UMass Dartmouth to UMass
Lowell, simultaneous administration of cumulative exams, and the use
of video conferencing for the oral research proposal. Six more Ph.D.
candidates are working toward degrees under the joint
program.
Blanchette, a Westport High School graduate,
earned an associate's degree from Bristol Community College in 1994.
At BCC, he received the Lamp and Book Award for Excellence in
Anatomy and Physiology and The Sherman Scholarship for Excellence in
Chemistry. At UMass Dartmouth, he earned his bachelor's degree in
biochemistry (cum laude) in 1997, was on the honor roll for three
semesters and won awards for Outstanding Academic Performance from
the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry for three
years.
Following his undergraduate research, Blanchette was
awarded a Travel Grant from the American Society of Biochemistry and
Molecular Biology and attended its 11th International Congress in
San Francisco. At the meeting, Blanchette won an undergraduate
poster competition, besting students from schools including Harvard,
Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.
Blanchette earned a master's degree at UMass
Dartmouth in 2000 and was awarded a certificate for outstanding
teacher assistant in chemistry/biochemistry. He was also the
recipient of the American Institute of Chemists' Outstanding
Biochemistry Graduate Student Award.
He is currently a
research and development scientist at a local biotechnology firm,
BBTech.
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| �The
Herald News 2002 |
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