Bella Jacobsen

Biography

Bella's interest in chemical biology began while earning her bachelor's degree at Grinnell College. She learned organic chemistry while working at both Grinnell College (in the lab of Steve Sieck) and the University of Iowa (In the lab of Dave Martin) to develop novel synthetic routes towards biologically-relevant natural products. Wanting to explore how her organic chemistry knowledge could be applied to human health, she then did a two-year post-baccalaureate research experience under James Inglese at the National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS) at the National Institutes of Health. There, she developed small molecule and macrocyclic peptide modulators of disease-relevant proteins, expanding on her synthesis skills to learn assay development and computational modeling.