University of Richmond chemist Carol Parish receives National Science Foundation funding for anti-cancer research
August 25, 2008
Carol Parish, associate professor of chemistry at the University of Richmond, has been awarded a three-year, $267,000 National Science Foundation grant for her work on anti-cancer drugs.
Parish's project, funded through NSF's Research at Undergraduate Institutions program, is titled "A Theoretical Investigation of Multireference Diradical Systems," and will explore the electronic structure associated with anti-cancer enediyne warhead drugs.
Enediynes are a class of molecules referred to as prodrugs, which are activated only in the presence of a cancer cell and thus avoid the harmful side effects of many chemotherapeutic treatments.
The electronic nature of the drugs will be investigated using computational chemistry methods run on supercomputer clusters at the university. The grant will be used to support a post-baccalaureate fellowship, summer research fellowships for Richmond undergraduates, equipment, and travel for Parish and her students to attend scientific and collaborative meetings.