You can’t miss her. Her sweet smile and polite manners are apparent every time you step into her classroom, chemistry lab or office.

In 1977, Frieda Texter, Ph.D. ’72 became the first biochemistry teacher at Albright. At the time, Albright was one of the first schools with an undergraduate program in biochemistry in the country. She is now the chair of the Chemistry Department. With research fields growing so rapidly, Texter believes that biochemistry will remain a popular program. The use of technology in the lab has also brought about positive changes. “With the computer lab in the science building, we can do more experiments easily and quickly,” she says.

For the past four years, Texter has also been involved in a collaborative research project with the University of Minnesota, as well as several of her students. The research project is on Arylamine N-Acetyltransferase, an enzyme that has been linked to cancer in mammals. The University of Minnesota has managed to make a clone of the enzyme in hamster genes. Between the two types of the enzyme, molecular and isozymes, they have determined one form is more stable than the other.

Texter’s part in the research is testing those stabilities with folding tests. Folding tests consist of unfolding the proteins that hold the enzyme in a structure, and then reforming the structure, noticing the activity of the proteins in the cell. By performing these types of tests you can determine which type of the enzyme is more stable. Texter also will be testing stability using genetic engineering and other instruments.

Students are an important part of her research. By letting students become involved in the research process, she says they can “understand the background of an experiment, and eventually make decisions in that experiment on why something did or did not happen.” Because it takes a day to prepare an experiment and another day to complete it, Texter conducts her research during the summer months or during interim.

Many of Texter’s research assistants are recent Albright alumni: Blake Schaeffer ’00, Brendan Walsh ’00, Angela Bretz ’99, Jennifer Kelley ’99, Eric Lutz ’00, Nicole Hurst ’00, Andy Goren ’01, Caroline Ferrarro ’01, Carmela Shenensik ’01, and current students Shannon Kline ’03 and Angela Tatum ’03. She is currently in the process of obtaining a grant from the National Science Foundation so she can continue her research.

In addition to teaching and conducting research, Texter also enjoys volunteering as an advisor to Phi Mu Fraternity, one of the national sororities on campus. Being a member of their local chapter, Phi Beta Mu as a college student, she then became their advisor and an alumnae initiate of Phi Mu when the chapter was installed in the fall of 1986. Texter says advising has been a very positive experience for her as well as the chapter. She enjoys getting to meet different students from all around campus, and being involved with them is refreshing. Texter feels that one of the strengths in her advising position has been watching the group change from Phi Beta Mu into the present Phi Mu chapter, which still retains some of the traditions and ideals from when she was a collegiate member. The good friends she made while pledging and living in the Phi Beta Mu house for three years while a student on Albright’s campus will always be remembered fondly, she says.

— Lisa Mixon ’02