Morrow named UB Distinguished Professor

Janet R. Morrow, professor of chemistry, been named a UB Distinguished Professor.

The UB Distinguished Professor designation was created by the Office of the Provost to recognize full professors who have achieved true distinction and who are leaders in their fields. It is not to be confused with the SUNY Distinguished Professor designation, a rank above that of full professor awarded by the SUNY trustees.

It is open to faculty members who have been a full professor for at least five years and who have achieved national or international prominence and a distinguished reputation within their field through significant contributions to the research/scholarly literature or through artistic performance or achievement in the fine arts.

Morrow’s research interests lie in bioinorganic chemistry, with a focus on transition metal ion and lanthanide ion complexes in medicine and biomedical imaging.

Her research group recently produced new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents based on iron, cobalt or nickel. MRI contrast agents based on iron as a biologically relevant metal ion are of special interest as an alternative to lanthanide-based contrast agents that currently are used in clinical MRI procedures, Morrow says.

“We have designed MRI contrast agents that report on the physiological environment, such as changes in pH, temperature or redox status in tissue. These contrast agents are an important step toward the development of molecular imaging probes,” she says.

Other recent research developments include the synthesis of new chelates that bind divalent iron in order to study the location and trafficking of iron in cells.

Morrow also has a long-standing interest in metal ion interactions with RNA and DNA, with the long-term goal of modulating gene expression.

“Current developments include metal ion complexes that bind specifically to DNA structures, which may be important in the regulation of biological function such as G-quadruplexes,” she explains. “These quadruplexes are secondary structures found at the ends of DNA in telomeres and also in promoter regions of DNA that control transcription.

“Our metal complexes selectively bind certain G-quadruplexes through interaction with the loop structures. Switching DNA conformation by interaction with metal ion complexes is an alternative way being studied in my group toward the control DNA structure and function.”    

A UB faculty member since 1988, Morrow is the recipient of numerous awards, among them UB’s Exceptional Scholar Award for Sustained Achievement (2015), the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (1994-96), the National Science Foundation Award for Special Creativity (2007-09) and the Jacob F. Schoellkopf Medal from the Western New York Section of the American Chemical Society (2014).

A prolific scholar, she has published numerous scholarly articles and book chapters, been issued four patents for her work and served as a member of many NSF and NIH review panels and study sections.

In addition to her research and teaching, Morrow is director of the NSF’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates site in the Department of Chemistry — she also held that post from 2005-11 — and she also served as associate chair of the department from 2006-12.

She earned a BS in chemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a PhD in inorganic chemistry from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

She was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Bordeaux, France, and at the University of California, San Diego, before joining the UB faculty.