Faculty Highlights

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.

In the cells of palm trees, humans, and some single-celled microorganisms, DNA gets bent the same way. Now, by studying the 3-D structure of proteins bound to DNA in microbes called Archaea, CU Boulder and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers have turned up surprising similarities to DNA packing in more complicated organisms.

Ahn, a professor of distinction in the department of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Colorado Boulder, was elected president of The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology last year and began her term as president-elect in July.

CU Boulder philosopher Alison Jaggar and biochemist Karolin Luger are among 228 new members of the academy, which includes some of the world’s most accomplished scholars, scientists, writers, artists, business people and philanthropic leaders, the academy said in a statement.

A new University of Colorado Boulder study has shown that some dividing human cells are “kicking the can down the road,” passing on low-level DNA damage to offspring, causing daughter cells to pause in a quiescent, or dormant, state previously thought to be random in origin.

University of Colorado Boulder Distinguished Professor Tom Cech, Colorado’s first Nobel Prize winner, has been named the 2017 Hazel Barnes Prize winner – the most distinguished award a faculty member can receive from the university.