A grant awarded to Timothy P. Curran, Vernon K. Krieble Professor of Chemistry, will fund a summer research experience for a Trinity College student.
Curran has received a 2025 Principally Undergraduate Institution (PUI) Summer Research Grant from Organic Syntheses, a peer-reviewed scientific journal in the field of organic chemistry. The grant will provide a summer stipend for an undergraduate researcher working alongside Curran in his lab and will be used to purchase chemicals and other supplies needed to conduct research.
“The grant is for one summer and likely will be extended to two; if we do satisfactory work, we get funding for another summer,” said Curran.
The research project outlined in Curran’s grant proposal involves an unusual reaction that Curran and student researchers in his lab discovered when three identical molecules combine to form one. He said, “We want to look at this reaction which makes these trimers—the name for three molecules all coming together —and see what else we can learn from it and do with it.”
Curran said that the molecules have a particular 3D shape, which is of interest to biochemists. “We think that the molecules adopt a shape called a beta-sheet. People are interested in beta-sheets because they’re involved with diseases like Alzheimer’s,” he said.
His lab has worked with beta-sheets before, “but this reaction has been an unexpected discovery,” Curran added. “We actually discovered it because there was an annoying reaction that wasn’t working for us.”
Biochemistry major Sara Ingrey ’27 is the student researcher who will work on the project with Curran this summer. “She did some of the preliminary work that led to the grant,” Curran said. “I met Sara through the Interdisciplinary Science Program (ISP), when she started working in my lab as a first-year student.” ISP is a Gateway Program designed to give students interested in science and mathematics hands-on research experience in their first year at Trinity.
Curran and Ingrey have already written a paper together about this reaction, along with Lilly Pubillones ’25, another student researcher who helped to discover it. “Our preliminary paper is being reviewed right now; we’re hoping it’s going to get published,” Curran said.
Working with students in the lab and supporting their development as scientists is important to Curran, who has been teaching at Trinity for 25 years. “I got my start in chemistry by having a professor take me on in the summer to do research, and that really cemented my interest in chemistry. This is my way of returning the favor,” Curran said. “It’s really a great thing to work with Trinity students in the summer as they do the research and gain experience.”
