Gianluca Bencomo ’21 is going to help save the world and put humankind on Mars.
That’s an exaggeration, but it’s kind of not. Bencomo recently finished research at NASA’s nearby Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) on efficiently turning carbon dioxide into oxygen and a low-grade fuel. That’s not only crucial to NASA’s mission to put astronauts on Mars by 2035, it’s a potential life-saver here on Earth, where carbon emissions have pushed the atmosphere past its healthy limits. And back at Whittier College’s laboratories, Bencomo is investigating how common pesticides may be changing the very make-up of our brains.
Amid his impressive and growing body of research, the biochemistry and economics double major stays humble, and stays hungry.
“I just know that these are things that have to be done,” Bencomo said. “As a pre-med student who’s aspiring to hopefully go to a very top medical school, I know I have to do the absolute most I can do throughout the entirety that I’m here at Whittier. So I’m constantly pushing. I think if I get comfortable with what I’m doing then I won’t push harder. I’m always seeking to do more.”
Before the first human being can take one giant leap on the red planet, NASA needs to know that the crew will have enough air to stay for 18 to 24 months and get home—which includes rocketing off the planet surface, and rocket fuel requires a ton of oxygen. Mars is sadly lacking: the atmosphere is almost entirely carbon dioxide.
So Bencomo worked on a way for astronauts to convert that nearly omnipresent carbon dioxide and put it to use. At JPL, he helped design and construct a gas flow cell, comprised of a carbon dioxide reduction catalyst and oxygen evolution catalyst, submerged in an aqueous electrolyte, which effectively split carbon dioxide and produced oxygen.
“It felt really good to finally push through and produce the desired result that we wanted,” Bencomo said.
He understands his contribution is a small part of an enormous undertaking, involving hundreds of people. NASA may ultimately choose another method for producing oxygen and fuel on Mars. But Bencomo knows that this method matters to Earth, too, where roughly 3,200 gigatons of carbon dioxide are floating in the atmosphere. A safe level is about 2,800.
Meanwhile, Bencomo is turning his sights to another toxin: organophosphate pesticides, a common pest control in the fields and orchards of California’s Central Valley and beyond. The same summer as his JPL internship, he began that research with professor Erica Fradinger, the James Irvine Foundation Chair in Biological Sciences, to understand how one of the pesticides might be affecting people’s brains. The pesticides influence neuronal development and could have a role in the development of neurodegenerative disease.
The pesticides not only affect humans; they have an environmental impact, as well. As it enters the rivers and streams in the Central Valley and beyond, it sticks to the riverbed sediment where fish raise their eggs.
By the spring, he, Fradinger, and another student on the project plan to publish a paper on their work. That’s the kind of career-building experience that Fradinger wants to ensure all of the students she works with gain during the time at Whittier.
“I want to support their future careers,” she said. She starts them out on a research project that she knows the ins and outs of; it’s definitely going to yield results, if they do it correctly. After that, she works with students on choosing higher-level, riskier research based on their interests.
Bencomo was wrapping up his first year at the College when he began his higher-level neuron research, and was able to continue that work into the first weeks of summer, thanks to the financial support of a Keck Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship that allowed him to stay in Whittier, rather than return to his hometown in Northern California.
Harvard Medical School doesn’t take just anyone. Bencomo wants to do all he can to get there. He’s off to a good start.
