Assistant Professor of Chemistry Bob Rawle recently published a paper that corrects some misunderstandings about how the West Nile Virus operates and creates a pathway for further research that could lead to the development of an anti-viral drug in the future. Chemistry majors Olivia Graceffa ’22 and Abe Park ’22 contributed to his research and co-authored the paper, published in the November issue of the American Chemical Society’s
Infectious Disease journal.
Before joining the Williams faculty in 2018, Rawle, a biophysical chemist, was a postdoctoral fellow in a joint research collaboration between Stanford University and the University of Virginia. At Stanford, he used a computer model developed to understand West Nile Virus to study a virus from the same family—Zika Virus. Viruses in this family are transmitted by mosquitos and can cause everything from mild symptoms to severe illness.