Enter the long and confusing maze within the science complex. Amid the high-tech corridors, the hum of the busy laboratories, the organized chaos of wires and complicated machinery, Prof. Lizbeth Hedstrom (BIOL) can be found conducting research, tucked away in a place where many never venture. In December 2010, The American Association for the Advancement of Science Council, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing science around the world, selected a new group of AAAS fellows. Included in the group of fellows is Hedstrom, chosen for her scientific research that could have an important influence on greener chemistry and new ways to make antibiotics.

Individuals will be awarded special rosettes and certificates at the Fellows Forum, which will be held on Feb. 19 during the AAAS annual meeting in Washington, D.C., as a form of recognition for their outstanding accomplishments and contributions to science.

"I'm interested in how enzymes work," Hedstrom says of her research. Hedstrom's focus on enzymes, biological catalysts that influence the rate of reactions, is due to the fact that biochemistry is so largely dependent on enzymes, according to Hedstrom.

Hedstrom's team researches the way in which enzymes function, how other small molecules interact with them and how scientists could engineer better and more useful enzymes.

While Hedstrom says that there is no specific part of the research that is unique, she says it is the entirety of her research that is being recognized by the AAAS.

Comparing the honor to a lifetime achievement award, Hedstrom describes the award as a recognition of all her work, spanning from her research and work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, San Francisco to all of her contributions to science and technology that have secured her place as a fellow of the AAAS.

Nevertheless, she says that she and her team of researchers have done some fundamental studies on what determines specificity, which consists of understanding how an enzyme chooses what it acts upon.

"We are really doing a good job in designing some inhibitors, molecules that prevent other molecules from functioning properly," Hedstrom explains.

The applications of Hedstrom's work "are limited by your imaginations," as she puts it. Her research aims to design compounds that could serve as both anti-bacterial and anti-parasitic drugs. Stressing research on a particularly puzzling protein whose mutation causes inherited blindness, Hedstrom and her team are devoting specific attention to studying the protein.

"We are really excited about that," Hedstrom comments, hinting subtly at her optimism of the outcome.

Hedstrom's research may also have important applications in green chemistry, she says. Her work has the potential to be used in the design of chemical products and processes that are not only safer but also more eco-friendly and cost-efficient. This can be achieved by building better proteins, an area in which she has focused much of her research.

Despite being personally named an AAAS fellow, Hedstrom is quick to acknowledge how fortunate she is for her large research team, composed of talented undergraduate and graduate students, as well as postdoctoral fellows from Brandeis.

"I didn't do any of this with my own two hands," she says, "All I do is sit back and type, [and] other people do the exciting experiments."

A graduate of the University of Virginia, with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry, Hedstrom, who brands herself the prototypical undecided undergraduate, says she was interested in a myriad of topics in school, not only in chemistry.

Although the teaching in the chemistry department of the University of Virgina wasn't perfect, she says she still ended up in chemistry because she enjoyed it.

"It was May of my senior year and I had nothing to do. I was walking in the hallway of my chemistry department and my favorite professor asked me what I was going to do and I said I didn't know," she admits.

"He took me into his office, and he made two phone calls for me-one to Brandeis and the other to Penn State [University]. If that hadn't happened I would never had heard of Brandeis and would have never ended up here," she says.

Hedstrom received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Brandeis in 1985. She then went on to MIT and UC, San Francisco for her postdoctoral work.

In 1992, Hedstrom returned to Brandeis as a faculty member because it was "the best offer I had," she says.

Affable, direct and obviously passionate about what she does, it is no surprise that Hedstrom was presented with the Louis D. Brandeis Teaching Award in 2007 for her oustanding teaching.

When asked what she likes most about Brandeis, Hedstrom immediately recognizes the students.

"The students are very talented, eager and ambitious," she says, mentioning her colleagues as well.

"[Brandeis] is really interactive; you have people who will help you achieve your wackiest ideas."

While being named an AAAS fellow was unexpected for Hedstrom, her work is well deserving.

"It's wonderful to be recognized by your peers and it's also a great way to start the new year," she says.