For former CSU San Marcos student Omar Apolinar, having his work published in a distinguished
academic journal not only helped him forge a path to graduate school, but the study has the potential
for advances in the pharmaceutical industry. Apolinar, who graduated summa cum laude with a
degree in biochemistry in 2019, is now in his second year of a doctoral program at Scripps Research
in La Jolla. He has been published in the scientific journal Angewandte Chemie.
Apolinar’s co-written research paper, “Catalytic, Enantioselective -Alkylation of Azlactones
With Non-Conjugated Alkenes via Directed Nucleopalladation,” reflected work completed as an
undergraduate in the Engle Lab at Scripps Research through its Summer Undergraduate Research
Fellows (SURF) initiative. The paper details a process utilizing palladium and chiral phosphoric acids
to manipulate a simple compound into something far more complex in just one step. The discovery
could lead to advancements in lifesaving pharmaceuticals.
Angewandte Chemie is a peer-reviewed journal of the German Chemical Society, and it has been
published under different names since the late 19th century. Apolinar’s paper appeared in the
journal’s February 2019 international edition.
“This is one of the higher-echelon peer-reviewed journals for organic chemistry published today,”
said CSUSM chemistry professor Robert Iafe. “Even for a graduate student, this would be an
amazing feat. Only the most highly driven undergraduate could accomplish something like this.”
Apolinar said the experience was beyond inspirational.
“I never would have imagined that I could ever have had a research paper published in a journal such
as this,” Apolinar said. “It’s amazing to realize that I have contributed to the chemistry literature. It’s
something that can never be taken away, and it motivates me to want to publish more original work
that can lead to other discoveries.”
He should have plenty of opportunity. Apolinar is currently a National Science Foundation predoctoral
fellow at Scripps Research. His goal is to become a process chemist in the pharmaceutical industry,
breaking new ground in developing lifesaving drugs. In the summer of 2019, he spent 10 weeks
interning with Janssen Research & Development’s Discovery Process Chemistry Group, also in
La Jolla.
Apolinar built a legacy as an undergraduate at CSUSM after graduating from San Marcos High
School. He was selected as a California State University Program for Education and Research
in Biotechnology (CSUPERB) Presidents’ Commission Scholar in 2017. The program is aimed at
increasing the number of undergraduate students who can access a full-time research experience,
and it supports up to 11 CSU undergraduates each summer. He worked as an undergraduate
research assistant in Dr. Iafe’s laboratory his junior year. He was STEM Peer Educator at the CSUSM
STEM Student Success Center. And he was chosen to take part in the first cohort of the TRIO McNair
Scholar program, which is dedicated to boosting the number of low-income and first-generation
college students who earn graduate degrees.