Janae Wofford always liked getting to the “root” of an issue. That’s not surprising for someone who grew up in the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains encircling Asheville, North Carolina.
When she chose to study at UNC Greensboro, she was pleased to keep in touch with nature through greenspaces like Guilford Woods. “I love hiking,” the Honors College student says. “It was nice to see a woody area that I could hike with little creeks to jump across, the type of stuff I’m used to back home.”
One walk in the woods inspired research that landed her a Goldwater Scholarship, one of the most coveted STEM scholarships in the nation. She hopes that her work will contribute to new medicines to treat infections that are growing more dangerous with time.
From Chapstick to the Cech Lab
Wofford’s curiosity about natural health products was first piqued in sixth grade. At a Girl Scout event at a chemistry lab, she made her own “ChapStick.” In her high school AP chemistry class, she synthesized aspirin using willow bark extract. “Native Americans often used willow bark for pain,” she says. “That was the first time I realized how natural products are used in medicine.”
Once at UNCG, Wofford signed up for a First Year Experience course taught by Dr. Nadja Cech, Patricia A. Sullivan Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, to learn about undergraduate research. She decided to ask to join Cech’s lab in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
“I found a home ever since,” she says.
Cech believes Wofford has what it takes to become a key player in biomedical research. “Her way is not just to be excellent herself, but to elevate the excellence of everyone around her,” Cech says.
Cech wasn’t the only one who was rooting for her. Wofford found a mentor in Zoie Bunch ’25 Ph.D., a graduate student in Cech’s lab. “Janae set herself apart,” says Bunch. “Mastering new techniques quickly, critically analyzing her results, seeking out background knowledge to strengthen her research.”
Working in a lab focused on plants, fungi, and bacteria leads to plenty of chances for field work. They visited farms, gardens, and forested areas like Guilford Woods. “My research really started there,” says Wofford. “When I stumbled upon an American Beech tree.”
She collected samples to begin looking for a weapon against highly contagious viruses commonly known as “superbugs.”
Antibiotic Arms Race
Antibiotics changed the game in medicine, Cech explains. Ever since the discovery of penicillin, they have saved billions of lives. But its success also created a problem – what she calls a “bacterial arms race.”
“When you use an antibiotic to treat an infection,” she says, “You wipe out most of the microscopic organisms causing that infection. But there’s often a few with a mutation that allows them to resist treatment. Over time, as antibiotics are used, the populations that don’t get wiped out are the ones that reproduce and grow. Then we get bacterial pathogens that we call ‘superbugs,’ essentially created by our use of antibiotics.”
Superbugs pose a grave risk to weakened or compromised immune systems. Wofford says, “If you go into a nursing home or a hospital and say the word ‘MRSA,’ they’re going to freak out. MRSA is one of those bacterial infections that is really hard to treat.”
Wofford hopes her research will give doctors a medicinal weapon that superbugs won’t see coming.
Taking her beech tree samples back to UNCG, she tested for its ability to inhibit the growth of bacteria. “We can split it into multiple fractions and then do an antimicrobial assay. Basically, I plate the plant with bacteria and see how they interact.”
Out of 12 fractions, two caught her attention. “They actually showed 100-percent inhibition; it completely stopped the bacteria from growing.” With one more year left before graduation, Wofford will separate it further to identify what’s causing the activity.
Future in Pharmaceuticals
Ever since she worked with that chunk of willow bark, Wofford has been interested in pharmaceuticals. Possibilities started in the Cech lab did not end there. She will spend this summer at Duke University studying cancer drug therapy.
She’s left feeling bittersweet as she continues her research without Bunch, who is going to Harvard for her postdoc. But Bunch says Wofford has already emerged as a new guiding light for incoming students. “It is incredibly fulfilling to guide a student through the early stages of learning and then see them become leaders in the lab,” she says.
Wofford credits her success to the collaborative spirit encouraged across UNCG. And she’s grateful that she got to dig deep into research before her senior year. “Someone asked me one day: ‘What is one word to describe UNCG?'” she says. “I said, ‘Opportunity.’ No matter where you are, there are people looking out for you and pushing you forward.”
Story by Janet Imrick, University Communications
Photography by Sean Norona, University Communications; and courtesy of Dr. Nadja Cech, College of Arts and Sciences
