Summer Science Scholar Dasha Aminia ’25 worked with Associate Professor of Chemistry Kerry Rouhier this summer on research related to how plants produce sticky, pest-repellent sugars.
“Have you ever touched a tomato plant?”
This is the question posed to a recent visitor by biochemistry major Dasha Aminia ’25, followed by the lightning flash of a grin. The Summer Science Scholar is discussing her research in Associate Professor of Chemistry Kerry Rouhier’s lab in Tomsich Hall, investigating a chemical process occurring »Æ¹Ï¾«Æ·Solenaceae family of plants. It’s a group that includes everything from chili peppers to deadly nightshade — and, of course, tomatoes.
Tomato plants, Aminia explains, have “fuzzy little hairs on the stem (and leaves).” These hairs, which are often sticky, may help to attract pollinators or repel pests. This stickiness results from the production of a class of molecules known as acylsugars, which diagrammed chemically, look like a stick-figure drawing of a comet: a hexagonal pinwheel (the sugar core) trailing a long, wriggling tail (the acylchain).
These acylsugars are at the heart of Aminia’s research. While scientists know that plants use a protein called 3-ketoacyl-ACP synthetase (KAS I for short) to elongate the acylchains, questions remain as to how specific KAS I is to that purpose. Understanding more about this process may help to reduce pesticide usage in agricultural systems, as increasing acylsugar production in host plants may allow them to defend organically against pests.
Aminia’s research is helping to build the necessary foundation to investigate these processes in greater depth. “In order for us to mock the synthesis of (acylsugars),” she says, “we need to get the initial proteins of it.”
So Aminia spent her summer days trying to find a way to effectively produce large quantities of KAS I — a process filled with stumbling blocks. Initially, for example, the protein kept breaking apart »Æ¹Ï¾«Æ·solution the lab was using, making it extremely difficult to purify; other problems arose with extracting KAS I from the E. coli cells used to grow it.
“Every day,” Aminia says with a laugh, “I’m like, OK, am I gonna move on a step, or am I gonna go back two weeks of work?”
While this lack of steady forward progress can be frustrating, Aminia also — paradoxically — finds that the difficulty itself is what draws her to research. “A lot of the beauty of it is like …” She trails off. “It’s painstakingly slow, and there’s a lot of failure. But that makes it more interesting, because you get to do a lot of trial and error on how things could have worked.”
As she describes it, research is not a linear movement from question to answer, but rather a continual process of reevaluation and problem solving. This is part of what Aminia — who emigrated from Ukraine when she was 10 and lived in Los Angeles before coming to Kenyon — enjoyed about the full-time schedule of summer research. While she worked in Rouhier’s lab throughout the past four academic years, she appreciates that during the summer, she could be »Æ¹Ï¾«Æ·lab for longer and more continuous periods of time, allowing her to fully immerse herself »Æ¹Ï¾«Æ·work.
It’s a level of engagement that allowed Aminia to focus on her favorite aspect of research: the inventive, exploratory side. Or, as she puts it: “how much creativity goes into making something work.”
This article was written by Julius/Sophia Gabelberger ’26 as part of the Hoskins Frame Summer Science Writing Scholars program.
