No name could be more obvious for a group such as ourselves. We're not very well acquainted for the most part, except Christina and Derek, who know each other, but are just plain strange themselves. Hence, the name sticks.

"How did this group come to form and work together?", you might ask yourself. It's not very likely, but you might. Believing in preparedness for such an event, we've created this paragraph. Well ... let's see, our group formed through pure random chance. Christina and Derek knew each other through all the Animal Science and Chemistry classes they've had together and tried to form a group with others they knew in Organic Chemistry. They failed miserably and were left behind as those they asked joined more popular groups. Standing around at the end of class as the deadline approached, the much snubbed pair ran across a half-group of three guys, David, Lawrence, and Dion. Each was looking for another half-group so they wouldn't fail and repeat Chem 210. Problem solved. It may not be a fairy-tale anytime soon, but it works.

 
Lawrence D. Butcher II, c701610@showme.missouri.edu 
Derek Cluck, c665711@showme.missouri.edu
David Durtschi, c640085@showme.missouri.edu
Christina Melvin, c675401@showme.missouri.edu
Dion Miranda, c671147@showme.missouri.edu

Well, we would like to say we slaved day and night for our project, meeting hourly and popping No-Doze to get our Organic Chemistry skills fine tuned into lethality. However, we also don't want to be struck down by a bolt of lightning from above or anything, so that's not what we'll say.

In actuality, some rushed after class meetings in Ellis to decide when we'll get together, a little email tag, and a lot of luck allowed us to get together a couple or three times in a computer recycling center and graveyard (Campus Computing labs). Here we sat for hours looking for inspiration in phosphorescent picture tubes until a combination of caffeine, electromagnetic radiation, sleep deprivation, and desperation brought us to our project topic.

Cystic Fibrosis: The Common Killer.

Cystic Fibrosis (CF) was chosen as our group project for a number of reasons. Firstly, it relates to each one of our fields of study-- Biology, Human Medicine, and Veterinary Medicine. Also, as we were surfing the web, we became interested in the topic since we were surprised to find it was such a widespread disease with no present cure.

Even though there are thousands of sufferers of CF, existing treatments are experimental and a cure is still only in the future. Through recent breakthroughs and intensive research, progress is being made in the diagnosis, understanding, and treatment of this lethal genetic disease. Although there is no present cure, there are other resources for CF sufferers in need of support.

Our group had only the same minor problems that all groups have: finding the same time for all of us to meet, getting started on the project in the first place and, of course, Christina's little drinking problem. We overcame these difficulties to finish our project on time and with some measure of sanity remaining. Also, Christina is doing MUCH better now, really she is.

In all seriousness, we have benefitted from our project on Cystic Fibrosis and its chemistry since each of us has some relation to the fields of medicine and disease mechanisms. Biology, Medical, and Veterinary, whatever our chosen fields, each of us learned by researching this topic.