Awards

Orit Peleg Awarded 2020 Research & Innovation Seed Grant: "Bee-Honeycomb Formation under Geometric Frustration"

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Apr 2020 23:10:51 +0000

Orit Peleg Awarded 2020 Research & Innovation Seed Grant: "Bee-Honeycomb Formation under Geometric Frustration" Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/15/2020 - 17:10

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Anseth earns international recognition with L’Oreal-UNESCO For Women in Science award

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Feb 2020 17:21:16 +0000

Anseth earns international recognition with L’Oreal-UNESCO For Women in Science award Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 02/18/2020 - 10:21

Jonathan Raab

CU Boulder Professor Kristi Anseth has received one of the most prestigious recognitions in the life sciences: a L’Oreal-UNESCO For Women in Science award.

Anseth, a distinguished professor and Tisone professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, is being recognized for her “outstanding contribution in converging engineering and biology to develop innovative biomaterials that help tissue regeneration and drug delivery,” according to UNESCO.

She is one of only five women in the world, and the only recipient in North America, to receive the recognition this year.

“I am tremendously honored and feel so very fortunate to be part of the broader �ֲ��ý community,” Anseth said. “However, I must first acknowledge that this is a shared honor. I have the pleasure of mentoring an amazing group of undergraduate students, graduate students and postdoctoral associates in my laboratory, and these individuals have contributed tremendously to the basis for this recognition. I am so thankful to them for their dedication and CU’s commitment to supporting not only the education of these individuals but their transition to future leaders.”

Anseth said she’s eagerly anticipating the opportunity to celebrate women scientists and engineers and to play a more visible role for the next generation. The mother of a 12-year-old daughter, Anseth said she hopes her daughter’s generation is inspired to pursue careers in STEM and that girls see no bounds to their possible careers.

She also commended her colleagues in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and the BIoFrontiers Institute for their support.

“I am fortunate to work in an environment with such brilliant colleagues who work tirelessly to advance our fields and educate students to develop technologies and ideas for supporting the well-being of people, society and the planet,” Anseth said.

Anseth, who is also the associate director of the BioFrontiers Institute, has a long and storied career in applying the principles of chemical engineering to the biomaterials field, authoring over 330 papers of extensive, highly impactful research and earning numerous awards and recognitions. She is one of only a handful of individuals worldwide elected to all three national academies: the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences. She also has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Inventors and the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering.

“Professor Anseth has proven time and again, through her stellar career of research and achievement, as well as her teaching and mentoring, that she is a world-class scientist and engineer,” said Keith Molenar, interim dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science. “The L’Oreal-UNESCO For Women in Science awards recognize the best of the best, and she is absolutely deserving of that honor. We’re proud that she calls the CU Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Science home, as she brings immeasurable value to the research and education happening here.”

“Kristi Anseth has been a leader in cutting-edge biomaterials research for over two decades,” said Charles Musgrave, chair of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. “Her work in the tissue engineering and drug delivery fields has led to the development of key technologies that will have an incredible impact on regenerative medicine and drug delivery. I can’t think of anyone more deserving of this award than her. My colleagues and I are proud of her many accomplishments.”

Anseth earned her doctoral degree in chemical engineering from CU Boulder in 1994 and joined the faculty shortly thereafter, focusing her research on developing biomaterials for medical applications.

Rob Davis, dean emeritus of the College of Engineering and Applied Science and Tisone endowed chair in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, nominated Anseth for the award. He cited her unparalleled research accomplishments in biotechnology and cell biology and the translation of her technologies into medical products, including in-situ-forming materials for enhanced bone regeneration, hydrogels for chondrocyte delivery and more.

He also emphasized her dedication to her students, recalling his first observation of her after she completed her PhD. She had volunteered to teach an 8 a.m. undergraduate course, winning over the sleepy and skeptical students with her enthusiasm and passion for the material.

Support for the nomination also came from other distinguished leaders in academia, including professors Paula T. Hammond and Robert Langer of MIT, Provost David A. Tirrell and Professor Mark E. Davis of the California Institute of Technology, and Professor Nicholas A. Peppas of the University of Texas at Austin.

The international For Women in Science awards, now in their 22nd year, recognize the accomplishments of women who work in the biotechnology, ecology, epigenetics, epidemiology and infectiology research fields. The L’Oreal Foundation and UNESCO bestow five of these awards each year, recognizing one researcher each from Africa and the Arab States, the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, Latin America and North America. Fifteen additional “Rising Talents” are recognized from these regions as well.

Anseth and the other awardees will be honored at a ceremony March 12 at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. Each award recipient will receive €100,000 (about $109,000). The awards seek to increase the representation and awareness of women in science and their achievements to inspire more women to consider careers in the sciences.

The late Deborah Jin, a professor of physics and JILA fellow at CU Boulder, also received the award in 2012.

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Yuanyuan Xie awarded National Cancer Center fellowship to explore the pathological role of transposons

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Jun 2019 14:56:18 +0000

Yuanyuan Xie awarded National Cancer Center fellowship to explore the pathological role of transposons Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 06/12/2019 - 08:56

Lindsay Diamond

Nearly all species’ genomes are littered with millions of genetic sequences called transposons, which are virus-like parasitic elements that can replicate and spread within host genomes. Collectively, transposon-derived sequences constitute about 50 percent of the human genome sequence, and are believed to have - over tens of millions of years - played a critical role in our evolution. Transposons are increasingly recognized to have influenced human biology and adaptation, particularly in the realms of development and immunity. Transposons may also contribute to disease.

Yuanyuan Xie, a postdoctoral researcher in the Chuong Lab, was recently awarded a National Cancer Center Postdoctoral Fellowship to explore the pathological role of transposon-derived sequences known as retrocopies in colorectal cancer.

For the cell to create proteins, the DNA sequence of a gene is transcribed into RNA, which is then normally translated into a protein. However, cellular RNAs are occasionally reverse-transcribed back to DNA and inserted into a different location in the genome, forming a type of gene duplication known as a retrocopy. Retrocopies originate from the activity of retrotransposons, which replicate by reverse transcribing their own RNA into host DNA, but occasionally capture cellular RNAs by accident. While over 8,000 retrocopies can be detected in the human genome, they are often assumed to be nonfunctional. Nevertheless, genomic studies have revealed that many retrocopies have transcribed RNAs or even translated proteins, often with distinct activities from their parental genes.

Repeat sequences can have deleterious effects in the genome and underlie several human disease conditions including Huntington’s disease, fragile X syndrome, several ataxias, and myotonic dystrophy. To protect against potential harm, all organisms have evolved genomic defenses to repress transposons through epigenetic manipulation. Yet, repression is inherently reversible, and inappropriate reactivation of transposons are common in many cancers. However, the specific cellular functions of retrocopies and whether they play a genome-wide role in cancer progression remain unknown.

Answering these questions is what drew Yuanyuan to the interdisciplinarity of Chuong Lab and the BioFrontiers Institute. “My previous experience was in cell signaling pathways and stem cell models, and I was interested in joining the Chuong Lab where I can learn computational genomics to study gene regulatory networks in evolution and disease,” says Xie.

Taking a break from the bench, Yuanyuan scoured The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), a joint effort between the National Cancer Institute and the National Human Genome Research Institute that has characterized over 20,000 primary cancer and normal samples across a variety of different cancers, in search of candidates where there is increased expression of retrocopies, rather than parental genes, in primary tumors.

Now with the fellowship funding, Yuanyuan will head back to the bench to test his hypotheses. “Through activities like DNA and histone modification, these repetitive elements are derepressed in states like cancer and aging. The question remains whether this derepression is a consequence or a cause,” says Xie.

Looking forward, Yuanyuan plans to extend the analysis to a genome-wide CRISPR screen to identify novel protein-coding and non-coding retrocopies involved in tumorigenesis. Overall these experiments seek to uncover an understudied yet potentially extensive pathological role for retrocopies in colorectal cancers wherein the mechanism may be applied to other types of cancers. These studies may help pave the road for more precise cancer therapies that specifically target retrocopies.

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The ALSAM Foundation funds new Anschutz-Boulder collaborative research

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 20:20:28 +0000

The ALSAM Foundation funds new Anschutz-Boulder collaborative research Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 12/18/2018 - 13:20

Lindsay Diamond

The ALSAM Foundation, a generous long-time donor to the CU Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (SSPPS), has provided $2M of funding for collaborative grants between the SSPPS and the BioFrontiers Institute. This donation supports the Therapeutic Innovation Grants Program that allows the SSPPS on the Anschutz Medical Campus to join forces with the BioFrontiers Institute on the Boulder Campus to encourage faculty collaboration in the development of innovative projects that will advance the health and wellness of people in our communities and around the globe.

“The ALSAM Foundation has been a transformative force for the SSPPS and for advancing therapeutic innovations through two therapeutic innovations research grant programs totaling over $5M in the past three years. We are enormously grateful to the Foundation for its continuing support and look forward to the outcomes of these multidisciplinary research projects that promise new insights into diseases with the goal of developing new therapeutics,” says SSPPS Dean Ralph Altiere.

Tom Cech, Director of the BioFrontiers Institute at CU Boulder adds, “This program will stimulate our BioFrontiers faculty and students to work with our SSPPS colleagues at Anschutz to develop new therapeutics in the areas of cancer, muscle disease and diabetes.”

The Therapeutic Innovation Grants Program will foster cross-disciplinary collaboration among pharmaceutical researchers at the SSPPS and the interdisciplinary bioscientists at the BioFrontiers Institute with the goal of transforming the development of a new generation of drugs by fueling discovery and translation of new therapeutics to the clinic to achieve better health outcomes for patients and families. The funded projects will address this goal by facilitating the collaboration of the best scientific and clinical research minds in Colorado in a manner that allows rapid testing of new ideas and approaches. This year’s Therapeutic Innovation Grants Program proposals included faculty from �ֲ��ý entities including SSPPS, BioFrontiers Institute, School of Medicine (SOM) and School of Public Health (SPH).

The newly funded projects address critical health issues related to cancer, vaccine design, diabetes, depression and alcoholism among others. The newly funded research partnerships aim to advance discoveries from the laboratory to the clinic.

Principle Investigator | Collaborating Investigators

Natalie Ahn (BioFrontiers) | Nichole Reisdorph (SSPPS)
Jared Brown (SSPPS) | Tom Flaig (SOM), Myles Cockburn (SPH), John Adgate (SPH)
Carlos Catalano (SSPPS) | Robert Garcea (BioFrontiers), Ted Randolph (UCB)
Shaodong Dai (SSPPS) | Aaron Michels (SOM)
Dan LaBarbera (SSPPS) | Terry Fry (SOM)
Bradley Olwin (BioFrontiers) | Nichole Reisdorph (SSPPS)
Amy Palmer (BioFrontiers) | Raj Agarwal (SSPPS)
Manisha Patel (SSPPS) | Diego Restrepo (SOM), Emily Gibson (SOM)
Nichole Reisdorph (SSPPS) | Kristine Kuhn (SOM), Cathy Lozupone (SOM)
Michael Wempe (SSPPS) | Richard Johnson (SOM), B Vogeli (SOM)

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Biochemist wins top award for study of cellular proliferation

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Oct 2018 14:33:01 +0000

Biochemist wins top award for study of cellular proliferation Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 10/05/2018 - 08:33

Sabrina Spencer, CU Boulder assistant professor of biochemistry, is one of 58 scientists nationwide to have won an NIH Director’s New Innovator Award. Those awards, announced today, are part of the High-Risk, High-Reward Research program, which supports “extraordinarily creative scientists proposing highly innovative research to address major challenges in biomedical research.”

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New Faculty Member Ed Chuong Named Boettcher Investigator

Anonymous — Mon, 18 Jun 2018 20:41:33 +0000

New Faculty Member Ed Chuong Named Boettcher Investigator Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 06/18/2018 - 14:41

Six �ֲ��ý researchers at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus and CU Boulder have been named Boettcher Investigators in the Boettcher Webb-Waring Biomedical Research Awards Program for 2018.

The awards support promising, early career scientific researchers, allowing them to establish their independent research and compete in the future for major federal and private awards. Recipients are awarded $235,000 in grant funding to sustain up to three years of biomedical research. They also receive the title of Boettcher Investigator.

“The 2018 class of Boettcher Investigators represents Colorado’s most dynamic emerging scientists, leaders who are committed to improving human health,” said Katie Kramer, president and CEO of the Boettcher Foundation. “The Boettcher Foundation is honored to support their research at this critical juncture in their careers and to elevate scientific innovation across our state.”

The 2018 Class of Boettcher Investigators and their research topics are:

CU Anschutz Medical Campus

Kathleen M. Gavin, Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine, Division of Geriatric Medicine – Cellular composition of adipose tissue
Jean M. Mulcahy Levy, M.D., assistant professor, Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders – New therapy development for pediatric brain tumors
Matthew Taliaferro, Ph.D., assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics – Regulation of subcellular RNA localization
Eszter K. Vladar, Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine and cell and developmental biology – Airway epithelial development, homeostasis and dysfunction

CU Boulder

Edward Chuong, Ph.D., assistant professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology – Evolution of gene regulatory networks
David H. Root, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience – Neurobiology of drug addiction

Also named to the 2018 class of Boettcher Investigators: Jesse W. Wilson, Ph.D., of Colorado State University.

The Boettcher Foundation Board of Trustees formally announced its annual class of Boettcher Investigators on June 7. The year’s total funding from the Boettcher Foundation’s Webb-Waring Biomedical Research Awards program is $1.41 million.

With the addition of the ninth class, there are 39 Boettcher Investigators at CU receiving over $9 million in biomedical research support.

See all CU Boettcher Investigators.

In its ninth year, the Webb-Waring Biomedical Research Awards honor the commitments that the Webb and Waring families made to scientific research. Including the class of 2018, 61 Boettcher Investigators have received funding through the Webb-Waring program.

Since 2010, Boettcher Investigators have gone on to earn a collective $34 million in subsequent independent research funding. Some 95 percent of award recipients still reside at Colorado research institutions, advancing the foundation’s mission of keeping Colorado’s top scientific minds in the state.

“We are continually impressed by the caliber of the community of Boettcher Investigators and the promise of their research to build better lives” said April Giles, president and CEO of the Colorado BioScience Association. “The research supported by the Webb-Waring Biomedical Research Awards undoubtedly improves the health of the bioscience industry and the residents of Colorado.”

Original publication https://connections.cu.edu/spotlights/six-cu-researchers-named-boettcher-investigators

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Gaining mechanistic insight into neurological changes in Down Syndrome through the study of the rare genetic disorder Vanishing White Matter disease

Anonymous — Tue, 22 May 2018 06:00:00 +0000

Gaining mechanistic insight into neurological changes in Down Syndrome through the study of the rare genetic disorder Vanishing White Matter disease Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 05/22/2018 - 00:00

Stephanie Moon

Down Syndrome is the most common chromosomal disorder, with 1 in every ~700 newborns in the U.S. affected. Down Syndrome is caused by the presence of an extra copy of chromosome 21. This additional chromosome can affect development and disease susceptibility. Recent work suggests that development of a region of the brain called the white matter may be slowed and impaired in individuals with Down Syndrome. Cognitive, intellectual and motor dysfunction can occur when the white matter doesn’t form or function properly. Understanding how the white matter of the brain forms and is maintained will be important for learning how to diagnose and treat many neurological diseases, including those associated with Down Syndrome.

The white matter is made of three different cell types: astrocytes, oligodendrocytes and neurons. Oligodendrocytes make massive amounts of protein to form insulating sheathes around neurons that are essential for rapid electrical signal transmission to allow neurons to function in the brain. Because making proteins is an energy-intensive process, protein production is highly regulated. Cells stop making most proteins in response to changes in the body like inflammation or nutrient deprivation, conditions that cause cellular stress. One reason that cells limit protein production during stress is to allow stress-induced genes to be selectively expressed to promote cell survival and adaptation to stress. A recent study demonstrated that individuals with Down Syndrome have changes in gene expression in the brain that indicate delayed oligodendrocyte differentiation. As a Sie fellow in Dr. Roy Parker’s lab I am working to figure out how changes in the way the cell responds to stress by repressing protein production could contribute to neurological disorders and white matter loss.

Defects in a key cell signaling pathway that regulates protein production are observed in many neurological disorders, and in many cases specifically cause white matter loss (Moon et al., 2018). To investigate the relationship between protein production during cellular stress responses and neurological disease, we looked to a rare genetic disorder called Vanishing White Matter disease (VWMD). Patients with VWMD can be affected at any age and experience delayed development of the white matter or white matter loss that worsens with time and is ultimately fatal. VWMD patients can undergo more rapid deterioration of the white matter after experiencing trauma or fever, conditions that can cause cellular stress. Unlike Down Syndrome, VWMD is caused by very small changes in the genetic code that affect a particular set of genes needed for protein biosynthesis to occur in the cell. This provided us with a relatively simple model system to investigate the relationship between white matter disease, protein production and stress.

We hypothesized that if there was a link between loss of the white matter, protein production and stress responses in the cell, we might see differences in how cells from patients with VWMD respond to stress by regulating protein biosynthesis compared to cells from healthy individuals. We discovered that cells from patients with VWMD repress protein production during stress to a greater extent than healthy cells, and this impacted their ability to recover from stress (Moon & Parker, 2018). Stress-induced genes were expressed later and to a lesser degree in VWMD patient cell lines compared to cell lines from healthy individuals. Importantly, we found that certain drugs targeting the protein production pathway could be used to improve the response of VWMD patient cells to stress. I am now evaluating how cells derived from individuals with Down Syndrome respond to conditions of cellular stress by modulating the protein biosynthesis pathway. I hope this work will improve our understanding of aspects of Down Syndrome and many different neurological disorders and perhaps eventually provide new therapeutic targets to enhance patients’ quality of life.

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National Academy of Sciences inducts 2 CU Boulder professors

Anonymous — Mon, 07 May 2018 06:00:00 +0000

National Academy of Sciences inducts 2 CU Boulder professors Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 05/07/2018 - 00:00

Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine

Pioneering biochemists Natalie Ahn and Karolin Luger have been inducted into the National Academy of Sciences, an honor that recognizes "distinguished and continuing achievements in original research." Membership in the prestigious organization is widely considered to be one of the highest honors that a scientist can receive.

"It's really a wonderful recognition of our work and a great honor that I share with all of my coworkers, past and present," said Luger, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Jennie Smoly Caruthers Endowed Chair of Biochemistry.

Luger and her colleagues study how genetic material is stored in human cells and how these organizational principles critically affect every aspect of cell life in health and disease. Understanding and visualizing protein-DNA assemblies at atomic resolution will allow researchers to better understand how the genome is decoded by the cell’s machinery.

In 2017, Luger—who is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator—published research on the genomic structure of microbes called Archaea, findings that hinted at the evolutionary origins of DNA folding that all multicellular organisms use. The research built on Luger's cornerstone scientific achievement, which outlined the three-dimensional structure of the nucleosome. That finding, now widely cited in textbooks, was named the “breakthrough of the year” in 1997 by the journal Science.

Ahn joined the CU Boulder faculty in 1992 and served as an HHMI Investigator from 1994–2014. She serves as President of the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

“This is such a great honor," said Ahn, a Professor of Distinction in Chemistry and Biochemistry and Associate Director of the BioFrontiers Institute. "I owe many thanks to my past mentors, and to my wonderful colleagues, students and friends in our amazing CU Boulder community.”

Ahn's research focuses on enzymatic and cellular mechanisms underlying cell signal transduction. She conducted pioneering work in the discovery of the mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase cascade, including the identification of MAP kinase kinases which are important targets for anti-cancer therapies. She was also a pioneer in the use of functional proteomics and mass spectrometry for signal transduction research.

The 2018 class of National Academy of Sciences inductees includes 84 researchers from across the country as well as 21 foreign associates. The new inductees bring the total number of active members to 2,382 and the total number of foreign associates to 484.

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Sara Sawyer Receives Richard M. Elliott Memorial Award in Glasgow, Scotland

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Jan 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Sara Sawyer Receives Richard M. Elliott Memorial Award in Glasgow, Scotland Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 01/23/2018 - 00:00

BioFrontiers Institute

For billions of years, the battle between cells and viruses has been a primary driver of evolution. �ֲ��ý Boulder researcher Dr. Sara Sawyer has dedicated her career to this relationship, combining methods from virology and molecular evolution to investigate emerging human and animal viruses. Sawyer, an Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and core faculty member of the BioFrontiers Institute, is receiving the Richd M. Elliott Memorial Award from the University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research. This award is in honor of Richard M. Elliott, the former Chair of Infectious Diseases at the University of Glasgow, and a pioneer in the field of emerging viruses.

Richard M. Elliott was a pioneer in the field of bunyaviruses, which are RNA viruses transmitted by arthropod carriers such as mosquitoes. His work was pivotal in understanding the structure and function of viral genomes.

“I came to virology through the backdoor, entering this field originally so that I could test ideas in evolutionary theory,” Sawyer commented. “I am really honored to receive this recognition by the virology community.”

Sawyer frequently turns to genomics to trace the evolutionary history of antiviral genes in humans and primates, as well as viral proteins that can evade the immune system. Using tools from molecular evolution, Sawyer sheds light on why humans are resistant to animal viruses and how viruses evolve the ability to infect new species. Her work in virology will be recognized at the 23rd Glasgow Virology Workshop on February 10th.

“The prize really belongs to my whole lab, past and present,” Sawyer said. “Many people have worked together to mold the new field we are helping to pioneer, which is to combine evolutionary theory and experimentation to understand how viruses jump from animals to humans.”

Sawyer is implementing innovative approaches to continue the work of pioneering virologists such as Richard M. Elliott. Her achievements have already been recognized by the Omenn Prize for the best Evolutionary Medicine paper of 2013, and a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, given to her in 2011 by President Barack Obama in a ceremony held at the White House. By merging disciplines, Sara Sawyer is beginning to answer longstanding questions about how new viral diseases emerge from nature.

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Professors Marv Caruthers and Larry Gold named 2017 National Academy of Inventors fellows

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 21:09:25 +0000

Professors Marv Caruthers and Larry Gold named 2017 National Academy of Inventors fellows Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 01/03/2018 - 14:09

Jim Scott

The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) named two CU Boulder faculty members to its class of fellows for 2017.

Distinguished Professor Marvin Caruthers of CU Boulder’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry was honored for his pioneering contributions to the chemical synthesis of DNA and RNA, making it possible to decode and encode genes and genomes.

Professor Larry Gold of the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology was honored for his DNA and RNA research, which led to the development of new families of drugs.

The NAI elected 155 fellows in 2017, representing research universities and government and non-profit research institutes. The 2017 fellows collectively hold nearly 6,000 U.S. patents.

Caruthers has won many prestigious honors during his career, including election to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2006 by President George W. Bush for his contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the science arena. Caruthers also co-founded numerous biotech companies, including Amgen in 1980.

A bioscience industry pioneer, Gold is also an elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is currently chairman of the board of SomaLogic, one of three biotech companies he has founded while at CU Boulder.

Both Caruthers and Gold are recipients of CU Boulder’s Distinguished Research Lectureship award, one of the highest honors bestowed by faculty on a faculty member.

Those elected to the NAI are inventors on U.S. patents nominated by their peers for outstanding contributions in innovative discovery, technology and positive societal impact.

The 2017 NAI fellows will be honored in April as part of the Seventh Annual NAI conference in Washington, D.C. All 2017 fellows with be presented with a trophy, a medal and a rosette pin.

Three other CU Boulder faculty were previously elected to NAI: Distinguished Professor Kristi Anseth of chemical and biological engineering in 2015; Distinguished Professor Christopher Bowman of chemical and biological engineering in 2016; and Distinguished Professor Leslie Leinwand of molecular, cellular and developmental biology and chief scientific officer for the BioFrontiers Institute, in 2016.

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