Ivan DmochowskiIvan grew up on Cape Cod, MA near the scientific institutions of Woods Hole. This cultivated a strong interest in Nature, offering exciting summer employment and spirited science fair competitions. Ivan was named a Presidential Scholar in 1990, and wnt on to attend Harvard College and major in Chemistry. Ivan was inspired by research mentors across many areas of Chemistry and Biology, including George Whitesides (Harvard), Helmut Ringsdorf (JGU, Mainz, Germany), Harry Gray, Jay Winkler, Scott Fraser, and Eric Davidson (Caltech), en route to becoming a professor of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) in 2003. Soon after joining the Penn faculty, Ivan received a phone call from Rod Eckenhoff, who described fascinating, still-unresolved molecular questions surrounding general anesthesia. A long-standing collaboration was born, which has led to several joint publications probing anesthetic mechanisms. One highlight was the co-discovery and application of the first fluorescent general anesthetic. Ivan's research program has centered more broadly on developing molecular probes and spectroscopic tools to enable the study of proteins and nucleic acids for biomedical applications. Of particular interest is the noble gas and general anesthetic xenon, which has led to the development of biophysical approaches to elucidate xenon interactions with small-molecule and protein hosts. Ivan's laboratory has also developed strategies for photomodulating nucleic acid structure and function, with emerging tools for modulating gene expression and harvesting mRNA from single cells in living brain tissue. This work has been generously supported by the NIH, NSF, and DoD. Read More Read Less