Spring 2003
Why UCLA?
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COLLEEN SUTTON
PH.D. STUDENT,
CHEMISTRY AND BIOCHEMISTRY

COLLEEN SUTTON DREAMS OF BECOMING a professor of organic chemistry and has a passion for research into compounds that fight life-threatening disease. To realize that dream, she applied to many graduate schools — Stanford and Yale among them.

Ultimately, she chose UCLA.

“Once the offer from UCLA came in, I had no inclination to go elsewhere,” Sutton says. “I had already decided that UCLA had the very best to offer me, and that the research group I could join would be perfectly in line with my interests.”

So Sutton packed up her belongings three years ago and moved from Canada to Westwood. She had earned her bachelor of science, with honors, in chemistry and biochemistry from the University of Western Ontario, and had developed a research interest in antioxidants — natural compounds that combat the destructive effects of cell oxidation upon the human body.

Sutton is currently working with the research group of Professor Christopher Foote, a world-renowned leader in the field of photo-oxidation. With his team, she is studying the photochemistry and photophysics of the photoactive drug hypericin, a chemical present in the herb St. John’s Wort that has been found capable of killing cancer cells and HIV.

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