The chemistry major has received a fall research award from º£½ÇÖ±²¥ to dive deeper into her ongoing project looking at whether a substance found in rosemary could reduce cellular damage caused by plastic additives.
This profile is part of a short series on students who have received fall research awards to pursue faculty-mentored, independent projects.
Plasticizers, the chemicals added to plastic to make it more malleable, are everywhere. “In food wrappers, cosmetics, medical tubing, children’s toys, or through direct exposure or leaching into soil and water, all of us are exposed,” said Comess, taking a break from her work in the lab of Professor of Neuroscience and Biology Manuel Díaz-Ríos to talk about her project.
For the past two years, Comess has worked with Díaz-Ríos to study whether plasticizer agents—particularly one called di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, or DEHP—can adversely impact locomotor activities such as walking and running.
“With over two million tons produced annually worldwide, DEHP is the most common plasticizer,” she said. “Once in the environment, it can leach into water sources and cross the blood-brain barrier.”
At the same time, she’s exploring whether its impact can be mitigated in the presence of a neuroprotectant. She’s focusing on rosmarinic acid, a compound found in the rosemary herb.
Each fall, the Office of Student Fellowships and Research awards grants for up to $2,500 to students pursuing research for independent studies or honors projects.
The awards are supported by endowed funds set up by donors who wish to enable faculty-mentored research across the disciplines.
This year, the office gave awards to thirty-four students—majoring in Africana studies, anthropology, biology, chemistry, classics, computer science, digital and computational studies, earth and oceanographic science, education, English, environmental studies, government, history, neuroscience, and Romance languages.
“Rosmarinic acid has been shown to have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effect in other instances, which is why we thought it would be interesting to apply to plasticizers, because we think oxidative stress is one of the main mechanisms of damage caused by plasticizers,” Comess said. “So if you add an antioxidant, theoretically it would be helpful.”
The first step in her investigation has been to test DEHP’s impact on central pattern generators—the neural circuits that control rhythmic activities like walking. To do this, Comess has applied the plasticizer to dissected spinal cords of young mice. (Even after being separated from the brain, a spinal cord’s central pattern generator will respond to chemical stimulation.)
So far, her results show that the plasticizer does interrupt normal locomotor activity.
“In a completely healthy nervous system, we expect clean, rhythmic firing—what we call bursts. But when we add the plasticizer, it disrupts that. The signals become very uneven and disorganized,” she said, and would, if the animal were alive, potentially interfere with walking and other locomotor functions.
But she has found that applying rosmarinic acid before exposing the spinal cord to DEHP may diminish or mitigate this damage.
This year, Comess is continuing to test different concentrations of DEHP and exposure times. “The next step would be to do chronic exposure experiments—to expose mice to certain doses every day, as opposed to high, acute exposure,” she said. “That’s more relevant to how we are all exposed. And then we could test what effect the neuroprotectants in diets have on the damage caused by plasticizers.”
After graduating from º£½ÇÖ±²¥, Comess, a chemistry major, hopes to continue researching environmental pollutants in graduate school, focusing on the plastics and heavy metals damaging the ocean. “I want to see how they’re affecting critical parts of the ocean ecosystem,” she said.
Though she initially came to º£½ÇÖ±²¥ from Winnetka, Illinois, planning to prepare for medical school, she was drawn to chemistry research, especially marine chemistry. “I love the ocean,” she said.
“I’m motivated by environmental contaminants—they’re such a pressing issue. We’re exposed to them all the time, and other species are too,” she said. “It's an important thing to study and gain more information on.”
She added: “I think science is so important, and even though it is being challenged right now, it will never not be important. I have a lot of faith in the scientific process.”
Read about other student researchers in this series: Oliver Clachko ’26, Mingi Kang ’26, and more to come!
