All that Glitters is
Gold (Compounds)

    For the alchemists of yore, finding the formula to turn any base metal into gold was akin to discovering the elixir of life.   But for Assistant Professor María Contel of the Chemistry Department finding a way to make gold compounds a useful tool in the battle against cancer is a matter of life and death.
    Born in Pamplona in the Spanish Basque country, Contel completed her Ph.D. at the University of Navarra and was a senior researcher in the University of Zaragoza before joining the faculty of Brooklyn College in 2006. Today she teaches inorganic and organometallic chemistry to undergraduate students, chemistry majors, and masters of sciences, as well as advanced inorganic chemistry to Ph.D. candidates at the CUNY Graduate Center.
    She recently submitted a paper to a science journal wherein she purports that, at least in vitro, while gold’s cytotoxicity (toxicity that can damage the cell’s mitochondria) is quite promising, its use could diminish the toxic effects of chemotherapy.
    “Most of the compounds used in chemotherapy nowadays are platinum derivatives,” she explains. “But I believe that gold compounds can be better for those cancer cases – such as leukemia – where platinum compounds have proven insufficient.”
    Although she has yet to receive government funding for her biomedical research, Contel has been able to rely on New York University’s Kathleen Kinnally, a biology professor whose team of four researchers is also working on Contel’s compounds.
     “I currently have two laboratories here and seven students working with me – of which six are women, including a Ph.D. candidate from China, Fangwei Liu.”
    Being a strong admirer of BC’s diverse student population and the College’s commitment to diversity, Contel is herself committed to supporting underrepresented groups. “Schools should provide more incentives to these students because

competition in our field is fierce,” she says, noting that minority students, and professors, with children should have access to free daycare to accomplish more for themselves, their families and their schools.
    “One of my students is a single parent but couldn’t get her child into our nursery home so she had to get an extra job to pay for it,” she says.
    A committed environmentalist who was active in Greenpeace, Contel has a second lab where she is researching green chemistry, trying to develop gold homogeneous catalysts that could have potential industrial and pharmaceutical applications.
    “We’d like to synthesize things that are better for the environment,” she said. “So we are teaching students to think from a green chemistry point of view and be more environmentally savvy.” To that effect, Contel and other colleagues in the sciences have regular meetings to discuss issues of sustainability.
    But there is more than gold in her life. Contel devotes time to her other passions, too, including art, music, theater, dance, and film. Having lived in at least three continents, she knows that art is too the elixir of life.

Visit Professor María Contel’s Web site:
http://userhome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/mariacontel