Associate Professor of Chemistry William Glover has been awarded a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Invitational Fellowship to visit Kyoto University in Spring 2026. The fellowship supports international research exchange by inviting overseas researchers to Japan to collaborate with local host scholars and institutions.
During the visit, Glover will work with Professor Toshinori Suzuki to investigate how ultraviolet (UV) light damages the molecular building blocks of DNA. The collaboration will combine multiscale simulation with multi-spectroscopic studies to better understand the photochemical processes that occur when DNA constituents absorb UV radiation—an important step towards clarifying the mechanisms of reactions that can contribute to mutation and skin cancer.
Very recent experiments from the Suzuki team have revealed a new twist in how the pyrimidine nucleic acids—cytosine, thymine, and uracil—respond to UV radiation, overturning our previous understanding. Glover’s team will focus on applying computational chemistry methods developed in his group to aid in the interpretation of the experiments and reveal atomistic details of these initial events of DNA damage.
"The JSPS program is one of very few international fellowships open to STEM faculty, so I am honored to have been selected. Working in-person with Prof. Suzuki will allow for real-time feedback between theory and experiment, which is so critical in a hot topic field like this one," said Glover.