Tom Cech leads RNA splicing dance

As part of BioFrontiers Institute Professor John Rinn’s biochemistry class, this week graduate students performed an RNA splicing interpretive dance on the west lawn of the Jennie Smoly Caruthers Biotech Building. CU Nobel Laureate and BioFrontiers Director Tom Cech (in the tie-dye T-shirt) played the starring role of the catalytic G, since he discovered and won the Nobel Prize for it. The balloons represent different parts of genes—purple are exons and green are introns.