In early June, Sergey Varganov, a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the ҹɫÊÓƵ, found out his application to the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program was successful. This prestigious award allows researchers to travel to another country to establish new collaborations or advance existing collaborations with international colleagues. Varganov will take a sabbatical in the 2025-2026 academic year and visit Brazil in the fall semester.
“It’s very exciting,” Varganov said. “This is a very prestigious award, and it's also exciting because it allows me to go work with my collaborator in Brazil for an extended period of time. I was planning to go anyway as part of my sabbatical, but I was probably going for a week or two. This award allows me to stay there for four months, and that gives us a chance to do some meaningful work.”
Varganov is a computational chemist interested in designing molecules for various applications. Varganov is the principal investigator of an interdisciplinary Department of Energy-funded project at the University which aims to develop design guidelines for molecules with applications in quantum science and technology. However, his work in Brazil will be focused on the design of transition metal molecules for use in photodynamic therapy, including cancer treatment. Such photoactive molecules can be injected into a patient then activated in a specific area of the body by exposing it to light with a predetermined wavelength.
“When they shine light on the particular part of your body, these molecules get activated and they produce very reactive species called radicals,” Varganov said. The radicals then “kill the cancer cells locally, so you don’t get all the side effects that you get from traditional chemotherapy. You also have to make sure those molecules are not toxic.”
Varganov’s role as a theoretical chemist on the project is to understand how light interacts with electrons in molecules, resulting in the ability to produce reactive radicals.
“We use electronic structure methods to solve complicated quantum mechanical equations utilizing high-performance computers,” Varganov said.
Using results of computational studies, Varganov can develop guidelines for designing molecules that could be employed in a given application. For his project in Brazil, he will be focusing on manipulating ruthenium, a heavy transition metal, by coordinating the ruthenium atom with various organic molecules to try to achieve the desired outcome of radical production. Ruthenium complexes have already been established as promising candidates for photodynamic therapy. However, the mechanisms of their interaction with light and the production of reactive radical species are not well understood.
“We will be focusing on some of the complexes which already exist to establish how they work,” Varganov said. “Then we will look at some complexes which haven’t been made yet but hopefully will work better based on what we learned from the existing complexes.”
Varganov has been working with his collaborator in Brazil, Professor Willian Rocha, for several years, and in fact was supposed to visit Brazil for a conference organized by Rocha when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. They hope to make significant progress in the fall.
“Hopefully, if we can find something interesting, we can suggest it to experimentalists and they can start synthesizing particular molecules with some promising properties,” Varganov said.
Varganov will join Rocha at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, located in the city of Belo Horizonte, about a seven-hour drive from Rio de Janeiro. As graduate program director for the Chemical Physics program, Varganov also looks forward to learning about the chemistry and physics programs in Brazil and facilitating student exchange between the ҹɫÊÓƵ and Brazilian universities.
Varganov is one of two researchers at the University to successfully apply to the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program this year. He said he would encourage other faculty members to apply for this award, even if they don’t have collaborators abroad.
“The Fulbright program actually helps you to establish those connections,” he said. “They can help you to find somebody who is interested in your work and willing to host you.”
