Sarah O'Connor facts for kids

Sarah E. O'Connor is an American scientist known as a natural product chemist. She studies how plants create special chemicals, called natural products. Many of these chemicals are very useful for making medicines.

Her work focuses on understanding the step-by-step process plants use to build these complex chemicals. Some of the important plant-made substances she studies are used in medicines to treat cancer and pain. By learning how plants make these chemicals, she hopes to find ways to create new and better versions.

From 2011 to 2019, she led a research team at the John Innes Centre in the United Kingdom. In 2019, she moved to Germany to become a director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology.

Education and Early Career

Sarah O'Connor earned her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). There, she studied with Professor Barbara Imperiali. After getting her doctorate, she did more research at Harvard Medical School. At Harvard, she worked with Professor Christopher T. Walsh to study how certain bacteria make a chemical called epothilone, which has been studied for fighting cancer.

From 2003 to 2010, she returned to MIT, this time as a professor, where she taught and led her own research lab.

Scientific Research

Professor O'Connor's research is like being a detective for plants. She and her team investigate how certain plants make chemicals that are important for medicine.

What Does Her Lab Study?

Her lab studies the recipes that plants use to make their unique chemicals. They look at special proteins called enzymes, which act like tiny machines inside the plant's cells. These enzymes build complex chemicals one step at a time.

By using computers and studying these enzymes closely, her team can figure out the entire recipe. Once they understand the recipe, they can try to change it. For example, they can add a new enzyme to the process. This can create a brand-new chemical that doesn't exist in nature, which might become a new medicine.

Some of the plants she has studied include:

• Catharanthus roseus (Madagascar periwinkle): This plant makes chemicals used in some cancer treatments.
• Rauvolfia serpentina (Indian snakeroot): A plant that produces chemicals used to treat high blood pressure.
• Aspergillus japonicus: A type of fungus that also creates interesting natural products.

Awards and Honors

For her important scientific discoveries, Sarah O'Connor has received many awards. These awards recognize her as a leader in her field.

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