Brian Frey ’91 works as part of a team to advance medical knowledge

Scientific research often is based on a team dynamic more so than individual work, says Brian L. Frey ’91 of Madison, Wisconsin. He is a senior scientist doing research in the Chemistry Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has 50 publications which have been cited more than 2,000 times, and he also is an inventor with six U.S. patents.

“I like learning how things work,” Frey says. “I like the variety of working on interesting new studies that have a high failure rate, as well as working on smaller tasks that are more routine and work out every time.

“In research, you get to understand processes more deeply and help contribute to our understanding of the world. This can lead to bio-medical breakthroughs and things that will help people’s health in the future.”

Frey graduated from Ripon College with a major in chemistry and a minor in mathematics. The Ripon community — classmates, professors, co-workers, friends and family — “helped me to succeed in science and in life,” he says.

Important people he met through Ripon include his wife, Becky Hustad ’91, and numerous inspiring professors such as Rich Scamehorn, who taught Frey’s first college chemistry class and later guided his senior research project.

Frey later received a Ph.D. in chemistry from UW-Madison.

“I truly blossomed at Ripon College, so much so that after earning my Ph.D., I became a chemistry professor at Lake Forest College to help other students blossom. But it turns out that was not my calling,” Frey says. “I realized early on that it was a struggle for me to try to teach broadly to dozens of students at the same time. Mentoring students one-on-one is my forte. I love small-group and individual interactions.”

He returned to UW-Madison and became part of a research team of 15 people. There are always multiple projects going on involving several team members, and often led by a graduate student. Frey says, “I help guide research projects, design experiments, and analyze data; I write grant proposals, research papers and reports; and I manage the budget for this large research group.

“A large part of science is applying your area of expertise and thinking about how ideas in your field can impact other areas of science. You keep trying to push the envelope and forge new directions.”

One research project he is working on involves collaboration with a professor in the surgery department working to engineer the growth of functional vocal cord tissue in the lab. The long-term goal is to repair or replace human vocal cords that have been damaged by trauma or cancer of the larynx.

“He does the biology part by figuring out what the cells need,” Frey says. “I do the analysis aspect. My main area of work is analyzing proteins. When looking at the engineered tissue, I compare that to native vocal cord tissues: what’s similar, what’s different, what changes are needed in the growing conditions.”

Frey also has mentored numerous Ripon College students over the past 20 years, creating significant experiential value and publication co-authorships that those Ripon students effectively used to out compete other graduate applicants. These students include Bridget Campion ’03 (Minnesota), Jessica Jarecki ’04 (Wisconsin), Jenan Kharbush ’09 (Scripps Institute), Sam Sondalle ’11 (Yale) and Lincoln Wurtz ’17 (Mayo Clinic).

Each of these students have since earned Ph.D.s with Sondalle and Wurtz engaging in highly competitive M.D./Ph.D. dual-degree programs. Kharbush and Sondalle each have won Ripon’s Outstanding Young Alumni Award.

“All of the Ripon students were motivated, intelligent and productive students,” Frey says. “They are destined for high-level things and for going to grad school, and this gives them higher-level research experience. I really thank Professor of Chemistry Colleen Byron for introducing those students to me and for keeping alive a strong Ripon connection these past couple of decades.”

Frey’s other Ripon contributions include giving seminars for the Department of Chemistry and assisting Byron and her summer researchers by empowering them to use databases more effectively and by providing access to UW laboratory spaces. These students include David Knapp ’18 (Georgetown Law School), Paul Kremer ’18 (Ph.D. program, Georgia Tech) and Eva Schaible ’19 (Creighton Medical School). Frey received Ripon’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2021 for outstanding professional achievements and dedicated service to Ripon College chemistry faculty and students.

“Science is fascinating,” Frey says. “It’s rewarding and it’s also a struggle. Chemistry is really interesting and at the center of so much science. I have spent my time as a chemist learning how the world works and striving to improve medical care.”

JAYE ALDERSON COLLEGE EDITOR