Marla Gravino, a second-year graduate student in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, has been awarded a 2025 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship. This prestigious fellowship provides three years of support to graduate students who have demonstrated the potential for significant achievements in science and engineering research. The 2025 competition was especially competitive, as only 1000 fellowships were granted, half the number that have historically been awarded.

Gravino works in the laboratory of Brittany Morgan, John V. O’Connor Assistant Professor of Cancer Drug Discovery, where the group studies the selective covalent targeting of RNA and RNA-binding proteins with small molecules. RNA molecules are exceptionally important in a wide spectrum of biological processes. However, significant challenges in targeting them with small molecules in ways that are specific and selective have limited their study. Gravino is working to overcome these challenges by determining what types of electrophilic species form covalent bonds with nucleophilic regions of RNA molecules. During her fellowship, she will work to create a map of reactive sites and determine how additional factors, such as molecular structure, affect the ability to form selective bonds between small molecule “labels” and RNA molecules. Because RNA biology is implicated in many diseases, including cancer proliferation and metastasis, this knowledge is essential to enable therapeutic targeting of RNA.

Undergraduate Sara Murray was also selected for recognition with Honorable Mention. Sara is a chemistry major who works in the laboratory of Prashant Kamat, Rev. John A. Zahm Professor of Science, studying semi-conductor light-harvesting materials. She plans to begin the Ph.D. program at the University of California Berkeley this fall.

Originally published by Rebecca Hicks at chemistry.nd.edu on May 19, 2025.