Georgetown College. Georgetown University.

Paul Pestano hopes to continue to develop research skills he learned in Dr. Wolf's lab at the National Institutes of Health. (Photo: Roland Dimaya)

By Megan Weintraub

Paul Pestano, a senior from the Philippines and California, will graduate this May with a major in Biochemistry, a minor in Medieval Studies, and an arsenal of valuable research skills he developed under the leadership of Dr. Christian Wolf.

“I started working for Dr. Wolf during my junior year,” says Pestano. “I’m one of the few people who actually enjoyed organic chemistry and I think that’s the main reason why I sought to work with him. I’ve learned so much in the year and a half that I’ve been in Dr. Wolf’s lab.”

Specifically, Pestano was drawn to Dr. Wolf’s focus on stereochemistry and enantioselective synthesis. When he started in the lab, he performed regioselective synthesis reactions with the help of his graduate student mentor. After he was awarded the John Adams Fellowship, Pestano spent last summer working on organic enantioselective sensors, a project that tries to identify enantiomers in the chemical compounds used in pharmaceuticals. As a result of this project, Pestano’s work was published in Synthesis. Currently, he is working with another graduate student mentor, Dan Iwaniuk, to develop sensors using thioureas—organic compounds of carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and hydrogen.

“Many students say that Dr. Wolf is a hard professor to work with because of the amount of time and effort he expects from each student,” says Pestano. “In my opinion, that is his greatest quality because he instills his students with an exceptional work ethic that is so crucial in every job or activity.”

While Pestano’s plans for the future are somewhat uncertain, he hopes someday to attend medical school. In the meantime, he has applied for two post baccalaureate programs at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where the patience and persistence he has cultivated in Dr. Wolf’s lab would serve him well.

“If I work in the NIH and then go to medical school, then the work I have done will help me immensely,” says Pestano. “The lab techniques that I learned are going to be valuable if I continue work in the research field, and the discipline required in doing that kind of work will definitely be important for the demands of medical school. So here’s crossing my fingers.”

When Pestano is not in the lab, he likes to spend time with friends, read comic books, and go snowboarding. Of his goals for the years after he graduates from Georgetown, Pestano expresses a mixture of ambition and sensibility.

“I like to keep myself grounded while still aiming high,” he says.

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