Hands On


Bond Girl

By Carrie Simmons

Some people can’t see the trees for the forest. But for Laura Gerber ’07, seeing and saving those trees starts at the molecular level.

laura gerberGerber spent the past two years conducting independent research in Professor Oleg Ozerov’s laboratory, studying organometallic compounds—chemical compounds containing bonds (the “glue” that holds atoms together) between carbon and metals such as titanium, palladium, or copper. These compounds accelerate or catalyze chemical reactions, which makes them very useful not only in producing polymers and drugs but also in transforming ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons into benign compounds.

Indeed, the bonds at the heart of organometallic chemistry are fueling the exponential growth of the field, as scientists strive to develop new drugs and search for better ways to create the products people use every day. At Brandeis, Gerber’s carbon curiosity, supported by the National Science Foundation’s Research Experience for Undergraduates program, initially focused on creating an organometallic compound with an unusual tantalum-carbon triple bond, but she ended up creating a compound with two tantalum-carbon double bonds.

“What was special about Laura’s discovery is that she made two double bonds to methylene groups, the smallest carbon-containing fragments that can make a double bond to a metal,” says Ozerov. “Laura’s is the first example where two methylenes are bound to the same metal center, not just tantalum, but any metal.”

“No matter how much chemistry you know, the results of experiments can still be surprising and exciting,” says Gerber, who earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemistry in four years at Brandeis.

Gerber’s research will be published in Organometallics, the premier journal in organometallic chemistry. It builds on the metathesis catalysts, which have revolutionized the production of pharmaceuticals, plastics, and paper products. Summing up the significance of Gerber’s research, Ozerov says, “It is not just that Laura’s compound is important, but also that she has mastered techniques and knowledge of organometallic chemistry. At the core of it is logic, daring, and common sense.”

“Science creates an international community that does not exist in many other fields,” Gerber says. “The laws of science govern us all equally, and brilliant minds from all over the world are working to solve the same problems.”

The Milwaukee native is continuing her research in organometallic chemistry as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Bergen in Norway, where she is studying the synthesis of recently discovered organometallic lanthanide compounds, which comprise fourteen elements in the periodic table. These compounds are important models for understanding Ziegler-Natta catalysis, a process that produces polymers such as polyethylene and polypropylene, both used in countless commodity applications such as food packaging and military clothing. The scientists who discovered this process—which uses an organometallic compound and greatly improved the quality of plastics—were awarded the 1963 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

“More than forty years later, the details of the process are not very well understood,” says Gerber. “There’s still a lot to learn about the basic chemistry of these elements, and there may still be other reactions where it could be used.”

Gerber also will study lanthanide compounds’ reactivity with organic compounds to explore potential applications. She is most interested in potential environmental applications of new compounds.

“When I’m in the lab, I always keep it in the back of my mind that there could be interesting applications for what I’m working on,” says Gerber. “Like making hydrogen fuel from water, which is cleaner than making it from carbon.”

In fall 2008, Gerber will begin a doctoral program in inorganic chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley.