Erin Broderick and Tanya Petrossian are among just 94 American students — and 694 students overall — who were selected based on distinguished research in the fields of chemistry, physics, and physiology and medicine after a rigorous, intensive screening process.
The Nobel laureates are from the United States, Europe, Russia, Asia and Israel. The Interdisciplinary Meeting of Nobel Laureates provides a forum for the transfer of knowledge between generations of outstanding scientists.
Broderick and Petrossian will attend a program of lectures, panel discussions, seminars and social events at the meeting in Lindau, after first meeting the other American student participants in Washington, D.C.
Tanya Petrossian: A 'fearless' scientist
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| Tanya Petrossian (click for enlarged image) |
Tanya Petrossian is interested in finding new biochemical pathways that may be important in preserving human health. Her research could have implications for treating cancer and other diseases, targeting harmful proteins and enhancing the body's repair enzymes.
"My research is a combination of bioinformatics and biochemistry," Petrossian said. "We are interested in analyzing the human proteins that have been sequenced in the Human Genome Project. There are about 25,000 proteins that have been sequenced, but the functions of many of the proteins are not known. I am trying to identify functions of more than 200 of the unknown proteins."
Petrossian, who is completing her Ph.D. work this summer in Professor Steven Clarke's laboratory, makes models and structures of enzymes and studies how molecules and atoms interact. In addition to her thesis work at UCLA, Petrossian participated in an internship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York through a UCLA program directed by Professor Kendall Houk and funded by the National Institutes of Health, which integrates chemistry and biology. There, she studied new biomarkers for breast cancer.
"The goal is to be able to detect cancer in the early, treatable stages with a simple urine or blood test," she said. "I'm a biochemist who does bioinformatics and chemistry to solve biological questions."
"Tanya has what it takes to be a great scientist," said Clarke, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry and director of UCLA's Molecular Biology Institute. "Tanya is fearless, and she can take a new field of science and run with it. She has found her niche, using her skills in mathematics and computer science, as well as chemistry and biology, to analyze tons of data and identify whether there is an implication for treating disease. It's a rare student who has her talents to understand mathematics and multiple braches of science enough to use them in biochemistry research. She also has boundless energy."
Petrossian, who was the only American student selected to record a video diary of her experiences in Lindau, is equally enthusiastic about UCLA, where she was also an undergraduate, and her experiences working in Clarke's laboratory.
"It's been a dream to work with Dr. Clarke," Petrossian said. "I am so incredibly happy I ended up in Professor Clarke's lab. He trains his students to be scientists, not just people who can do one specific skill well. He has allowed me to use the knowledge I gained through inorganic chemistry, biology and computational science. The flexibility that he gives students is rare and wonderful. I have learned that I can tackle a challenging new project. In his lab, we all learn not to give up, even during the times when nothing seems to be working.
"I love UCLA," she said. "Four years of UCLA definitely was not enough for me. It's my home."
While most UCLA undergraduates go elsewhere for graduate school, Petrossian decided to stay put.
"We actually discourage undergraduates from staying for their graduate work," Clarke said. "But for the best students, we don't discourage them too much, and we're pretty happy when they decide to stay. As a biochemistry major, Tanya was at the top of her class."
How did she feel when she was selected to participate in the meeting of Nobel laureates and students in Germany?
"I was ecstatic," said Petrossian, whose research is federally funded by the National Institutes of Health. "I'm incredibly excited to have this once-in-a-lifetime chance to interact with a group of the best chemists, physicists and physiologists in the world. We have a Nobel laureate, Paul Boyer, in our building, just across the hall, and every time he's here, I make up some excuse to talk with him. It's fascinating to talk with people who are at the head of their fields to see the commonalities among them. How do their brains work that allow them to devise unique solutions? They often do not go by the textbook way of conducting research and are sometimes even chastised for the way they solve significant scientific problems before they are praised when they finally do solve them. What qualities enable them to do this? It's going to be really interesting to all learn from one another.
"We will get a lot of one-on-one time with the laureates and can ask any question we dream of," she said. "I want to learn how they think, and not just about science. You can't get that from a textbook or a lecture."
Clarke thinks Petrossian may learn just as much from the other students, who will make up a "cohort of the next generation of leading scientists." The Nobel laureates will draw the great young scientists worldwide to the meeting, which may lead to future research collaborations among the students, he said.
Erin Broderick: A 'commitment to great science'
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| Erin Broderick (click for enlarged image) |
Erin Broderick's research project is so difficult and "bold" that Paula Diaconescu, her faculty mentor, discouraged her from pursuing it. Not easily discouraged, Broderick would not hear of it.
"I feel attached to this project," said Broderick, a fourth-year Ph.D. student. "There are difficult stretches where you hit a wall. I always figure eventually it will pass. It's a big challenge of problem-solving, and meeting the challenge is part of the job. That's the nature of chemistry. When you make a discovery, it becomes very exciting."
Her research is focused on the application of uranium complexes to catalysis. She is one of the first chemists to make polymers with the chemical element cerium.
Diaconescu, an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and her research group design and synthesize metal complexes with specific geometric and electronic properties and apply them to potentially useful transformations. Designing new reactions that do not exist in nature is a goal, and biomolecules potentially could result from the research.
Broderick is studying the chemistry of cerium complexes in an effort to create new biodegradable materials. She is comparing cerium and uranium - studying their similarities, differences, and the advantages of each. Cerium has not been well studied, and for good reason.
"There is a reason why chemists don't work with cerium much," Diaconescu said. "The compounds are not as stable."
Broderick's research has applications for "green chemistry," manufacturing in the future that, at least in principle, may not have chemical byproducts or waste.
"Understanding how compounds behave in transformations that are known will help us design new transformations that relate to green chemistry," Diaconescu said. Although uranium has a stigma associated with it, it actually may be a tool for green chemistry, she said.
Diaconescu quotes the 19th-century chemist Sir William Crookes, who spoke of lanthanides, the 14 chemical elements with atomic numbers 58 through 71 that "perplex us in our research, baffle us in our speculations and haunt us in our dreams. They stretch like an unknown sea before us — mocking, mystifying and murmuring strange revelations and possibilities."
A conversation with Diaconescu and Broderick, however, reveals that neither of them seems to be the least bit mystified or perplexed — just determined to unlock the secrets of inorganic chemistry, which they are doing, one molecule at a time.
"Erin works very hard, about 12 hours a day, six days a week," Diaconescu said. "She pursues her research with great determination. Her work is very difficult, but every success she has is extremely rewarding; she's had quite a few. Erin has a lot of very good ideas. Synthetic chemists need understanding and creativity and need to be very good at both; Erin is. She has a commitment to great science.
"When somebody is very good," Diaconescu added, "you want her to work on a nearly impossible project; everybody wants that. A weaker student could not handle the frustration. There are people who would look at the same things Erin looks at and not know how to make progress. Yet Erin has successes all the time."
Not all the time, Broderick said.
"You start with a goal," she said, "but it may require a lot of maneuvering to reach it." "There's a lot of failure along the way before you succeed.
"I've always liked chemistry," added Broderick, who plans to work in industry after earning her Ph.D. "I like atoms. I have been hooked on chemistry since high school. I'm extremely grateful to Paula for the opportunities she has given me. I have learned so much working in her laboratory."
Broderick, whose research is federally funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, is "very excited" about participating in the meeting in Germany.
"I'm looking forward to the interaction with the Nobel laureates and the delegates," she said. "I would like to learn what the Nobel laureates encountered along the way. I'm interested in meeting the students from all over the world, especially the other chemists."
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