Adrian enjoys playing and listening to music and reading classics and mysteries. He'd like to be a professor of physical chemistry someday and "help the human race with my research."
Adrian met several friends of his father who are biochemists. They work with the enzyme phospholipase A2, which cuts through cellular membranes. Adrian became interested in how the enzyme worked.
Adrian tested two forms of phospholipase A2, one that kills bacteria and one that digests food. He made 12 solutions ranging in pH from 4.5 (acidic) to 9.5 (basic), and added liposomes – tiny globs of fat that the enzyme breaks up. He also added a fluorescent labeler that emits light of a specific color when the enzyme cleaves a lipid. He measured the amount of light emitted, which corresponded to the enzyme activity. He found that the two forms of phospholipase work best at pH 7.9 and 8.5, higher than the body's pH of 7.4. This led him to speculate that phospholipase could be made into an effective drug if it were somehow delivered at optimum pH.
