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Polymers

Monica Olvera de la Cruz brings chemical simulations into the real world

This computational chemist unites theoretical and experimental science using physics, biology, and chemistry

by Malena Beatriz Stariolo, special to C&EN
September 20, 2024 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 102, Issue 29
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Monica Olvera de la Cruz smiles while sititng on a bench.
Credit: Eddie Quinones
Monica Olvera de la Cruz

Few people would be overjoyed at the prospect of working in a computational facility at night. But in 1982, Monica Olvera de la Cruz was doing it with a smile on her face.

Vitals

Hometown: Acapulco, Mexico

Education: BA, physics, National Autonomous University of Mexico, 1981; PhD, physics, University of Cambridge, 1985

Current position: Lawyer Taylor Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University

Best professional advice: Find your own research problems because there is no satisfaction working on a problem others have formulated. It will probably be solved before you solve it, and if not solved, then it means it is too hard.

Favorite music: Classical, tropical, and disco. I have too many favorite songs depending on my mood, the environment.

Nickname: Mino. Sergio, my brother, gave it to me.

I am: Latina

Back then, she was a PhD student at the University of Cambridge researching how polymer chains mix and move at the molecular level. But the research required extensive work in algorithm construction and simulations, which was a tall order for Cambridge’s single computer available to students. Olvera de la Cruz would have to wait in a queue of dozens of young scientists for days to use the equipment for a few hours.

Her fortunes changed after a visit to the UK Medical Research Council’s state-of-the-art computational facilities. “I asked my friend if I could run my simulations on their equipment at night,” Olvera de la Cruz recalls. The answer was yes.

These polymer simulations led to a partnership with the council to try to understand what happens to DNA, a polymer, during gel electrophoresis. “I think that was the most important thing I did, to look for a problem that had significance. It was no longer just a simulation game,” she says.

That unexpected collaboration changed the course of her doctorate, and it was a sign of where her research would end up. Today, Olvera de la Cruz directs her own lab and several research centers at Northwestern University that are known for their work combining chemistry, materials science, biology, physics, and engineering.

She’s especially well known for bridging theoretical and experimental teams with her multidisciplinary approach and bright spirit. “She loves her science and really has a deep commitment to it. It’s an infectious enthusiasm,” says Charles Sing, who worked with Olvera de la Cruz during his postdoctoral fellowship at Northwestern University.

Despite her longtime home in academia, Olvera de la Cruz’s origins are far from universities. She grew up in Acapulco, a coastal city in Mexico that, at the time, had very few science labs. “The higher the level of education, the greater the lack of laboratories,” she says. She remembers that as she was growing up, she had no opportunity to meet any researcher and had no scientist as a role model, which initially led her to consider a career in philosophy or mathematics.

Despite that, her curiosity about the nature that surrounded her flourished. From a young age, she was curious about the sea, the movement of the stars, and the mysteries of electricity. It all translated into an aptitude for science in school. She recalls her first physics class: “The teacher gave us all the equations, and I told him I didn’t need them. I could derive them.”

That was the most important thing I did, to look for a problem that had significance. It was no longer just a simulation game.

With the support of her family and the desire to understand the forces of nature, she pursued a physics degree at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Later, encouraged by her adviser, Alfonso Mondragón Ballesteros, she pursued her PhD at Cambridge.

Over the course of her career, Olvera de la Cruz and her group of students have been the theoretical minds providing explanations that experimentalists need to accelerate their real-world discoveries. Her PhD work on DNA in the 1980s led to better ways to sequence genes. More recently, her group helped identify vulnerabilities in the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 and helped develop soft materials for aquatic robots (ACS Nano 2020, DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.0c04798; Sci. Robot. 2020, DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.abb9822).

For the robots, a group at Northwestern used simulations created by Olvera de la Cruz’s group to design soft materials with the ability to react and adapt to the environment at a molecular level—for example, by being responsive to magnetic fields and light. Those properties were key to the robots’ walking and steering.

To do this kind of simulation, the group members need to deal with many variables, such as how an electric field is distorted by ions, and they need to know which variable will be relevant for what they want to do. “It’s a bit like a game, trying to figure out what is going on in our systems,” says Martin Girard, a former student of Olvera de la Cruz. “Working with Olvera de la Cruz is fun, and there was always a good atmosphere in the group, which made the work enjoyable.”

And despite the often behind-the-scenes roles assumed by theoreticians, “you can see the echoes of Monica’s work and the ideas she pioneered going throughout the literature over the past few decades,” says Sing, who is now a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. One of her greatest influences is in the field of electrolytes. In 1995, she discovered that the interactions between polyelectrolytes and counterions, both charged components, can lead to the formation of a solid from a solution. This discovery contributed to the understanding of the behavior of charged molecules.

“When I was a graduate student, my PhD adviser mentioned that if I wanted to understand electrolytes, all I needed to do was read Olvera de la Cruz’s papers,” Sing says. “Often when I go to do something in this area, I look back and find that Monica did it very well decades ago.”

With a constant smile and joy in sharing her knowledge, Olvera de la Cruz can engage anyone in the fields she studies. Today the professor is pleased to see that academia, especially in the fields of chemistry and physics, has a more significant Hispanic presence, and she hopes this will allow new generations to feel more included in the scientific community.

Chemical & Engineering News
ISSN 0009-2347
Copyright © 2024 American Chemical Society

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