Sarah O'Connor facts for kids

Sarah E. O'Connor is an American scientist who studies how plants make special natural chemicals. These chemicals are often used in medicines. She looks at the tiny parts inside plants that build these chemicals. She also explores how changing these building blocks can create new versions of the chemicals.

From 2011 to 2019, Dr. O'Connor led a project at the John Innes Centre in the UK. In 2018, she was chosen by the Max Planck Society to lead the Department of Natural Product Biosynthesis. This department is at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, where she started her role in 2019.

Learning and Early Career

Dr. O'Connor earned her Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). There, she worked with Barbara Imperiali, studying how large proteins change their shape.

After her Ph.D., she became a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School. She researched how a chemical called epothilone is made, working with Professor Christopher T. Walsh. Later, from 2003 to 2010, she returned to MIT as a professor.

What Dr. O'Connor Researches

Dr. O'Connor's research focuses on important plants that are used to make medicines. Some of these plants include Rauvolfia serpentina and Catharanthus roseus. She also studies a type of mold called Aspergillus japonicus.

Her lab uses special computer tools called bioinformatics. They also study enzymes, which are like tiny workers inside cells. This helps them discover new ways plants create these useful molecules. By adding new enzymes, like ones that add chlorine or oxygen, they can create new versions of these molecules. These new versions might not be found in nature.

Awards and Special Recognitions

Dr. O'Connor has received many awards for her important work:

• Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry in 2011
• Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award in 2011
• Wain Medal in 2013
• Chosen for the European Molecular Biology Organization in 2017
• Received an European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant in 2018
• Royal Society of Chemistry Perkin Prize for Organic Chemistry in 2019
• Became an Honorary Member of the Faculty of Chemistry and Earth Sciences at the University of Jena in 2022
• Received the Ernest Guenther Award in the Chemistry of Natural Products from the American Chemical Society in 2021
• Awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize in 2023
• Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2023
• Received an honorary doctorate from Université de Tours, France, in 2024
• Awarded the Prelog Medal and Lectureship from the Laboratory of Organic Chemistry of ETH Zurich in 2024
• Elected a Member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 2024

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