Sophia Shienvold ’24

Major: Biology with minors in Chemistry and Spanish
Project: Levels of Cytotoxic Rhodium and Platinum Compounds in Select Organelles within HeLa Cells
Advisors: Shari Dunham, associate professor of chemistry and Anastasia Thévenin, assistant professor of biological sciences

Sophia Shienvold ’24 accomplished a momentous amount of work while participating in research targeted toward a potential new chemotherapy drug.

“SOAR allowed me to be in a research lab for 40-plus hours a week and gain tons of experience with multiple areas of biochemistry,” Shienvold says, reflecting on her immersive experience.

Her research is part of a collaborative, years-long research project that involves three different labs at Moravian. Working with HeLa cervical cancer cells, Shienvold and the team analyzed exactly how much of their potential chemotherapeutic was taken up by cells in an effort to figure out how effective the agent might be.

This new agent is based on a rhodium complex, of which two variations are being tested. The Thévenin lab, in conjunction with the Shari and Stephen Dunham labs, selected these rhodium complexes based on their similarity to cisplatin, an established chemotherapy drug that displays high efficacy but many negative side effects. The complexes, along with cisplatin as a control, were administered to HeLa cells in doses aligning with their cytotoxicity. Shienvold then performed lysis and analyzed the cell material via spectroscopy to determine how much of each complex was absorbed, a key factor in their potential effectiveness.

For Shienvold, her main takeaway from her SOAR experience is how the collaborative nature of the project encouraged new ideas.

“There’s always something new you can learn about your project, especially working in a group,” Shienvold says. “I had different members of the research team give me other ideas that we have tried, some of them being successful. Collaboration on this project is probably the most important aspect of it, as each lab would not be able to continue the project without the other two.”

Shienvold’s involvement with the project began after a conversation with her academic advisor, Shari Dunham, associate professor of chemistry, who heads one of the labs associated with this research.

“I told her I was interested in research on campus,” Shienvold says. “From there, she got me into a lab to shadow another student, and we worked on a proposal for SOAR to continue work on this project.”

The project’s next steps include identifying the exact organelles that the rhodium complexes are able to enter within the cell, an aim Shienvold continues in an independent study and an honors project.

Shienvold presented this research at the Landmark Research Conference at Moravian University.