The ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry has selected Illinois chemistry Ph.D. student Rachel Schaaf as a recipient of this year’s Predoctoral Fellowships.
These fellowships recognize outstanding predoctoral students engaged in medicinal chemistry research. Fellows are selected based on scientific merit, research potential, and academic record, and receive stipend support for continued graduate study. As a MEDI Fellow, Schaaf 2025 will present her research at the Spring 2026 ACS National Meeting.
Schaaf is a fourth-year graduate student in the lab of chemistry Prof. Paul Hergenrother.
"I was so excited. I started to jump around I was so excited," Schaaf said, recalling the moment she read the email about the fellowship award.
The research that Schaaf is pursuing for this fellowship involves making kinase inhibitors, a class of drugs that block the action of enzymes called kinases and helps stop cancer cells from growing and spreading. Schaaf explained that kinase inhibitors have the ability to treat brain metastasis by adding a functional group that enables them to evade P-glycoprotein efflux (P-gp) at the blood brain barrier.
"That is the main efflux pump at the blood brain barrier and is one of the reasons that 98% of small molecule drugs are not blood brain barrier penetrating, because even if they can get in, a lot of them get effluxed out through this pump," Schaaf explained.
Her research is about helping those types of drugs avoid getting effluxed out, and if they successfully pass through the blood brain barrier, they can better treat brain metastasis.