C&EN’s 2021 10 Start-Ups to Watch
As Vasanthi Viswanathan was wrapping up her postdoc in chemical biologist Stuart Schreiber’s lab at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, she found herself at a crossroads. Viswanathan had devoted her training to understanding the mechanics of an iron-dependent cell death called ferroptosis. First described in 2012 by her graduate adviser, Columbia University chemical biologist Brent Stockwell, ferroptosis occurs when iron in a cell reacts with lipid peroxides, generating free radicals that push the cell to a fiery death.
