Liela Bayeh, a graduate student in Organic Chemistry

By Lin Lofley

Liela Bayeh, a graduate student in the laboratory of Dr. Uttam Tambar, Associate Professor of Biochemistry, recently was presented with the 2016 Dean’s Discretionary Award by Dr. Andrew Zinn, Dean of UT Southwestern Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

Ms. Bayeh, who is expected to complete her Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry in September, will join the staff of Dr. Stephen Buchwald’s lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology the following month.

“I’m going to a great place but I have had amazing experiences at UT Southwestern,” she said. “The research here is rigorous, as are the academics, and it’s very competitive but still with a sense of camaraderie.”

There is excitement at moving on, but Ms. Bayeh admitted she’ll miss the colleagues she has worked with in the new Organic Chemistry Graduate Program.

“It has been really exciting to watch the new graduate program begin to take shape throughout the years and I’m glad to have had the opportunity to be a part of its history.”

Ms. Bayeh was cited in Dr. Zinn’s announcement as someone who is “prolific in the lab, and she has already published seven papers.”

The focus of her research is the generation of medically and industrially useful compounds that are not contaminated with stereoisomers that can have serious side effects for patients. Ms. Bayeh has studied how to exploit abundant, simple, and inexpensive materials to develop novel mechanisms for the synthesis of compounds with negligible contamination with their isomers.

That research will likely lead to drugs with much broader therapeutic indices.

“It has been great for me to see Liela’s maturation as a scientist,” said Dr. Tambar. “I think she has a great career ahead of her, and I feel honored that she did her graduate studies in my lab.

“She is part of the first class of graduates from the Organic Chemistry Graduate Program.”

Ms. Bayeh graduated from Baylor University with a degree in biochemistry, and a desire for research that began when she was in middle school. While in high school, her father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which further solidified her decision to pursue a career in research.

“It was a catalyst for everything I’ve done,” she said. “Since middle school, this was the only profession that I considered.”

Not only that, but she discovered a real interest in organic chemistry. “I wasn’t too fond of my general chemistry courses in college,” she said, “but I found organic chemistry really interesting.”

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Dr. Tambar is a W.W. Caruth, Jr. Scholar in Biomedical Research.

Dr. Zinn holds the Rolf Haberecht and Ute Schwarz Haberecht Deanship of the UT Southwestern Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.