Assistant Professor
Email: drrapp@uoregon.edu
Affiliated Departments: Materials Science Institute
Interests: Inorganic synthesis, metals in biology, biomaterials, light-sensitive chemistries
A.A. Ventura College, 2010
B.S. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, 2012
Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania, 2018
Dr. Teresa Rapp trained as an inorganic chemist with expertise in photocleavable ruthenium compounds with applications spanning protein engineering and biomaterial design. She completed her postdoctoral training at the University of Washington as a Washington Research Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow with the DeForest Lab in Chemical Engineering, where she advanced next-generation photochemistries for biomaterial applications. She earned her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in Prof. Ivan Dmochowski’s laboratory, where she innovated several new ruthenium-based photochemistries. Through a collaboration with Prof. Jason Burdick, she harnessed these chemistries to create rapidly degradable hydrogels, as featured in her Cover Article for Cover in Chemistry – A European Journal. Dr. Rapp earned her B.S. in Chemistry from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, working with Profs. Gragson and Imoos in chemical education and copper-sensing molecules. In her free time Dr. Rapp enjoys the beautiful Eugene summers by hiking and backpacking, as well as hosting backyard BBQs and baking scrumptious desserts.
Inorganic chemistry offers a unique perspective to tackle complex biological problems. The Rapp Lab uses photosensitive Ru polypyridyl complexes to create smart hydrogel biomaterials, photocage small molecules and proteins, and multiplex drug delivery, all using visible and near-IR light.
Rapp, T., DeForest, C., Selective, Three-Wavelength Responsive Hydrogels for Cell and Drug Delivery, in revision, Nature Communications, Preprint: https://doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv-2022-hlbk6
Rapp, T., DeForest, C.; Targeting Drug Delivery with Light: A Highly Focused Approach, Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, 2021, 171, 94-107, DOI: 10.1016/j.addr.2021.01.009
Rapp, T., DeForest, C.; Visible Light-Responsive Dynamic Biomaterials – Going Deeper and Triggering More, Advanced Healthcare Materials, 2020, 9, 1901553 DOI: 10.1002/adhm.201901553
Rapp, T., Dmochowski, I.; Ruthenium Crosslinked Hydrogels with Visible-Light Degradation, Methods in Enzymology, 2019, 624, 151-166. DOI: 10.1016/bs.mie.2019.04.017
Rapp, T., Wang, Y., Delessio, M, Gao, M., Dmochowski, I.; Designing Photolabile Ruthenium Polypyridyl Crosslinkers for Hydrogel Formation and Multiplexed, Visible-light Degradation, RSC Advances, 2019, 9, 9, 4942-4947. DOI: 10.1039/C8RA09764J
Rapp, T.*, Highley, C.*, Carroll, P., Burdick, J., Dmochowski, I.; Ruthenium Crosslinked Hydrogels with Visible-Light Degradation, Chem. Euro. J., 2018, 24, 2328-2333. DOI: 10.1002/chem.201704580
Rapp, T., Phillips, S., Dmochowski, I.; Kinetics and Photochemistry of Ruthenium Bisbipyridine Diacetonitrile Complexes: An Interdisciplinary Inorganic and Physical Chemistry Laboratory Exercise, J. Chem. Ed. 2016, 93, 2101-2105. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.6b00173
Griepenburg, J., Rapp, T., Carroll, P., Eberwine, J., Dmochowski, I.; Ruthenium-caged antisense morpholinos for regulating gene expression in zebrafish embryos, Chem. Sci. 2015, 6, 2342-2346. DOI: 10.1039/C4SC03990D