David Freytag
GRADUATE STUDENT
B.S. 2022: University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
david19[at]illinois.edu
David was raised in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota. He initially attended Anoka-Ramsey Community College and earned an A.A. before transferring to the University of Minnesota to achieve a B.S. in Chemistry with a minor in Biochemistry. David participated in undergraduate research under Dr. Steven Kass both studying synthetic organocatalysis and utilizing computational techniques to build and characterize carcerands in silico, with the eventual goal of developing weakly coordinating cations. His research in the van der Donk lab is centered around the Emerging Pathogens Initiative, which aims to evolve lanthipeptides to act as influenza therapeutics.