New $1.05 million grant advances chemistry research at Trinity

Trinity University chemistry faculty, and their undergraduates, will help answer foundational chemistry questions with more than $1 million in new funding for research from the Welch Foundation.

Based in Houston, the Welch Foundation is one of the nation's largest private funding sources for fundamental chemical research in higher education.

These grants will fund the work of chemistry professors Rebecca Rapf, Ph.D., Christina Cooley, Ph.D., and Aaron Harrison, Ph.D., all of which create knowledge necessary for the science to advance  fundamental chemistry questions with potential real-world impacts ranging from aerosols to prodrugs for cancer or neurodegenerative diseases.

That brings the total of Welch-funded faculty in the department to five, including Jason Shearer, Ph.D. and Adam Urbach, Ph.D., who are both a Semmes School of Science Distinguished Professor of Chemistry., “Support from the Welch Foundation recognizes that Trinity has a longstanding tradition of really great, impactful chemistry research, and also the fact that we have excellent undergraduate students who are able to contribute to research on the level of  first or second year graduate students.”

Here’s where the new grants fit in:

 

Christina Cooley

Project: Borinic Acid Prodrugs for Rapid, Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS)-Mediated Therapeutic Activation 

Cooley and her lab will aim to enable the development of more effective and safer targeted therapies for conditions characterized by peroxide overproduction, such as ischemia/reperfusion injury, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases.

“This is research that faculty would want to do anywhere, that drives the field forward,” Cooley says. “We're choosing to do it here, with undergraduate students in the front row driver's seat with us.”

Rebecca Rapf

Project: Interfacial Reactivity of Alkyl Organic Acids in Complex Aqueous Environments 

Rapf and her researchers will help the chemistry field gain fundamental, generalizable insights into the key physical processes of air-water interfaces, where certain aspects of reactivity are still poorly-understood. Here, Trinity researchers will have top-level chances to gain confidence using advanced equipment.

“My lab is a very instrument-heavy laboratory,” Rapf says. “So students get a lot of hands-on training in working with advanced scientific instrumentation, which helps them prepare for careers in a wide-range of careersin different scientific fields. For students working in my lab,their day-to-day involves collecting and analyzing data with this instrumentation, as well as sometimes contributing to developing and optimizing new techniques. 

Aaron Harrison 

Project: From Atmospheric Aerosols to Photodynamic Therapy: Microviscosity Effects on Singlet Oxygen Photosensitization

Harrison and team will explore how the properties of a molecule's surroundings affect the photochemical production of oxidants in atmospheric aerosols, with further implications for biomedical and materials science. Like Rapf, the lab will provide undergraduate researchers hands-on experience with advanced spectroscopic techniques, contributing to their preparation for graduate programs and careers in STEM.

“Trinity students are very interested in getting into the laboratory early and contributing to original research,” Harrison says. “So, the support both institutionally and through foundations like the Welch Foundation really make it to where Trinity can do truly world-class, R1-type research, and do this with our students.”