Sarah works in Dr. Michael Kay’s lab at the University of Utah, where she uses the law of symmetry to design drugs that prevent infections. Specifically, her projects focus on developing D-peptide drugs that stop Ebola virus and E. coli bacteria from entering and infecting cells. She uses a variety of techniques, including peptide synthesis and X-ray crystallography, to understand the details of how D-peptide drugs bind to their targets. Sarah hopes that her work will lead to treatment and preventative therapies that protect people from disease.