Kudos

CU Boulder prof named Boettcher Investigator

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 18:38:17 +0000

CU Boulder prof named Boettcher Investigator Rachel Sauer Fri, 06/06/2025 - 12:38

Assistant Professor Jennifer Hill is one of seven Colorado researchers to be recognized by the Boettcher Foundation for their pioneering biomedical research

The Boettcher Foundation and Colorado BioScience Association (CBSA) have named Assistant Professor Jennifer H. Hill with the ��Ƶ’s Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology and BioFrontiers Institute, as one of seven outstanding early-career biomedical researchers.

Each scientist will receive a $250,000 grant through the Boettcher Foundation’s Webb-Waring Biomedical Research Awards Program to support up to three years of independent scientific research, with total grant funding reaching $1.75 million.

CU Boulder scientist Jennifer Hill, an assistant professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology, has been named a 2025 Boettcher Investigator.

“It’s a huge honor to be selected as one of this year’s Boettcher Investigators, especially given the depth of groundbreaking biomedical research in Colorado,” Hill said. “The award gives my lab the resources to explore the relevance of our work in human tissues, bringing us closer to our goal of preventing type 1 diabetes in children. As a young investigator, receiving funds like these goes a long way to help offset some of the anxiety and uncertainty in the current federal funding landscape.”

This year’s class represents the next generation of scientific excellence and marks another milestone in Boettcher Foundation’s 16-year commitment to strengthening Colorado’s biomedical research ecosystem, according to the Boettcher Foundation. The Webb-Waring Biomedical Research Awards provide crucial early-career support and position recipients to compete for additional private, state and federal research funding.

“We are delighted to support our 2025 Boettcher Investigators, and as champions of their work, we are confident that these researchers will continue to spark new discoveries and drive innovation in medicine,” said Katie Kramer, president and CEO of the Boettcher Foundation. “The far-reaching impact of our Investigators’ research extends well beyond the lab—each advancement sets in motion a ripple effect that benefits patients, strengthens Colorado’s scientific community, and inspires future breakthroughs. We are proud to invest in these remarkable scientists, whose dedication and creativity are shaping a healthier future for all.”

Hill is a microbe scientist who studies the connection between the pancreas and microbes in the gut, examining microbiota in the development of insulin-producing beta cells. Four Boettcher Investigators with the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and two with Colorado State University are pursuing research into fields including osteoarthritis, autism spectrum disorder, cancer and autoimmune diseases, and developmental and neurological disorders.

Since its inception, the Webb-Waring Biomedical Research Awards Program has supported 113 Boettcher Investigators, including this year’s class, and awarded close to $27 million in grant funding. These researchers have gone on to secure more than $150 million in additional research funding from federal, state and private sources, according to the Boettcher Foundation.

“Colorado BioScience Association is grateful to the Boettcher Foundation for its continued investment in the next generation of scientific leaders in our state,” said Elyse Blazevich, president and CEO of Colorado BioScience Association. “The Webb-Waring Biomedical Research Awards provide essential early-career funding that empowers researchers to remain in Colorado and advance their discoveries within our world-class academic and research institutions. We are honored to celebrate the accomplishments of the 2025 class of Boettcher Investigators.”

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about molecular, cellular and developmental biology? Show your support.

Assistant Professor Jennifer Hill is one of seven Colorado researchers to be recognized by the Boettcher Foundation for their pioneering biomedical research.

Traditional

White

College finance chief wins prestigious fellowship

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 22 May 2025 15:08:06 +0000

College finance chief wins prestigious fellowship Rachel Sauer Thu, 05/22/2025 - 09:08

Amy Lavens, the College of Arts and Sciences’ vice dean of finance and administration, is one of 17 professionals to win this recognition

Amy Lavens, vice dean of finance and administration for the College of Arts and Sciences at the ��Ƶ, is one of 17 business and financial professionals named as fellows of the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), the group has announced.

NACUBO’s immersive leadership development program prepares higher education professionals who are seeking a chief business officer (CBO) position in their next role, the organization said.

Amy Lavens, vice dean of finance and administration for the College of Arts and Sciences at CU Boulder, has been named a fellow of the National Association of College and University Business Officers.

Over the course of a year, NACUBO fellows will work with higher education presidents, provosts, CBOs and other experts as they expand their management, communications and leadership skills and strengthen the core competencies needed to succeed as senior leaders.

The 2025-26 fellows were selected from the largest applicant pool in the program’s history, and the incoming cohort is one of the largest since the program was founded in 2016.

"We are thrilled to welcome the 10th cohort of NACUBO’s prestigious Fellows Program—a milestone made even more meaningful because this group was selected from one of the most competitive applicant pools in our program’s history,” said Kara D. Freeman, NACUBO president and CEO, adding:

“These new fellows’ talent, diverse experiences and passion for higher education reflect the best of the future of college and university business administration and leadership. We look forward to supporting these and all our fellows’ continued growth and impact.”

At the CU Boulder College of Arts and Sciences, Lavens oversees financial strategy, budget planning and finance operations for the largest academic unit on campus. Before joining higher education, Lavens led financial and operational strategies in diverse environments, including clinical research, start-ups, manufacturing and a successful initial public offering. This background allows her to challenge conventional approaches, promoting creative and pragmatic solutions that marry financial stewardship with an institution’s overarching mission.

Her successes are built on the foundation of listening and learning, being authentic and translating complex concepts into clear, accessible language. She prioritizes transparency and avoids jargon that obscures meaning, fostering trust and collaboration, NABUCO noted.

Lavens holds an executive MBA and a bachelor of science in biochemistry from Colorado State University.

NACUBO’s fellows program is one in a suite of professional development programs aimed at preparing the next generation of chief business officers. Its offerings also include the Emerging Leaders Program and the New Business Officers Program.

Founded in 1962, NACUBO is a nonprofit professional organization representing chief administrative and financial officers at more than 1,700 colleges and universities across the country. It works to advance the economic vitality, business practices and support of higher education institutions in pursuit of their missions.

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about arts and sciences? Show your support.

Amy Lavens, the College of Arts and Sciences’ vice dean of finance and administration, is one of 17 professionals to win this recognition.

Traditional

White

CU Boulder physicist wins Brown Investigator Award

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 19 May 2025 16:00:00 +0000

CU Boulder physicist wins Brown Investigator Award Rachel Sauer Mon, 05/19/2025 - 10:00

Physics Professor Cindy Regal is one of eight investigators recognized for curiosity-driven research in chemistry or physics who will receive up to $2 million over five years

Cindy Regal, professor of physics at the ��Ƶ, has been named a 2025 Brown Investigator, the Brown Institute for Basic Sciences at Caltech announced today.

Regal, who is also Baur-SPIE Chair at JILA, a joint institute of CU Boulder and NIST, is one of eight scientists to gain this distinction, which carries up to $2 million in support over five years.

Brown Investigator Awards are given to mid-career faculty working on fundamental challenges in the physical sciences, particularly those with potential long-term practical applications in chemistry and physics, the institute stated.

Cindy Regal, a CU Boulder professor of physics, has been named a 2025 Brown Investigator.

Regal aims to use the research support to demonstrate quantum entanglement—a connection between particles like photons or atoms that persists despite their physical distance—with objects of larger mass than have been entangled before.

Regal said the Brown Investigator Award is a thrilling opportunity for her research group. “The Brown Institute’s focus on fundamental and risky studies will allow us to explore quantum mechanical phenomena in a regime that is enticing to physicists and for future impact, yet also exceedingly difficult to achieve in the laboratory,” she said, adding:

“We are keen to try a new concept in precision optical measurement and control that we hypothesize will generate quantum states in ever-larger and more tangible mechanical excitations. These explorations would not be possible to embark on without the unique resources provided to Brown Investigators.”

Regal earned a BA in physics summa cum laude from Lawrence University in Wisconsin in 2001 and a PhD in physics from CU Boulder in 2006. She did postdoctoral research at CU Boulder and at the California Institute of Technology before joining the CU Boulder faculty in 2010.

She won the Cottrell Scholars Frontiers in Research Excellence and Discovery Award in 2020, was named fellow of the American Physical Society in 2017 and won the CO-Labs Colorado Governor’s Award for High-Impact Research in 2016.

The Brown Institute for Basic Sciences at Caltech, established in 2023 through a $400-million gift to the Institute from entrepreneur, philanthropist and alumnus Ross M. Brown (BS '56, MS '57), seeks to advance fundamental science discoveries with the potential to seed breakthroughs that benefit society—a goal it shares with Caltech.

"Mid-career faculty are at a time in their careers when they are poised and prepared to make profound contributions to their fields," Brown said.

"My continuing hope is that the resources provided by the Brown Investigator Awards will allow them to pursue riskier innovative ideas that extend beyond their existing research efforts and align with new or developing passions, especially during this time of funding uncertainty."

Brown established the Investigator Awards in 2020 through the Brown Science Foundation in support of the belief that "scientific discovery is a driving force in the improvement of the human condition," according to its news release from the Science Philanthropy Alliance, which helped guide Brown in realizing his philanthropic vision.

"We're delighted to partner with Ross Brown and the members of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Brown Institute for Basic Sciences to identify and support outstanding investigators in fundamental chemistry and physics," said Caltech Provost David A. Tirrell, Carl and Shirley Larson Provostial Chair and Ross McCollum-William H. Corcoran Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.

A total of 21 investigators were recognized in the first four years of the program, including eight in the 2024 class, the first cohort to be installed under the auspices of the Brown Institute for Basic Sciences at Caltech.

Brown Investigators from all cohorts are invited to an annual meeting that offers opportunities to share ideas. The second annual meeting was held at Caltech in February 2025.

To determine the new cohort, a select number of research universities from across the country were invited to nominate faculty members who had earned tenure within the last 10 years and who are doing innovative fundamental research in the physical sciences.

Nominees were then evaluated by an independent scientific review board that recommended grant winners. In administering the program, Caltech refrains from nominating its own scientists for Brown Investigator Awards. In return, the Institute draws other funds from the Brown gift to support fundamental research in chemistry and physics.

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about physics? Show your support.

Physics Professor Cindy Regal, also of NIST, is one of eight investigators recognized for curiosity-driven research in chemistry or physics who will receive up to $2 million over five years.

Traditional

White

Two CU Boulder scientists win prestigious honor

Clint Talbott — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 14:00:00 +0000

Two CU Boulder scientists win prestigious honor Clint Talbott Thu, 03/27/2025 - 08:00

Ivan Smalyukh and Tom Blumenthal are named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Two ��Ƶ professors have been named 2024 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the group announced today.

Ivan Smalyukh (left) and Tom Blumenthal

Ivan Smalyukh, professor of physics, and Thomas Blumenthal, professor emeritus of molecular, cellular and developmental biology (MCDB), are among the 471 scientists, engineers and innovators who have been recognized for scientifically and socially distinguished achievements by the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals.

This year’s class of fellows “is the embodiment of scientific excellence and service to our communities,” said Sudip S. Parikh, AAAS chief executive officer and executive publisher of the Science family of journals.

“At a time when the future of the scientific enterprise in the U.S. and around the world is uncertain, their work demonstrates the value of sustained investment in science and engineering.”

“I am pleased to see this well-deserved recognition of Professor Smalyukh and Professor Blumenthal. Their accomplishments highlight the remarkable scientific advances occurring at CU,” said Irene Blair, dean of natural sciences.

Smalyukh’s research encompasses different branches of soft-condensed-matter and optical physics, including chiral phenomena, knot theory, laser trapping and imaging techniques, molecular and colloidal self-assembly, fundamental properties of liquid crystals, polymers, organic and nano photovoltaics, nano-structured and other functional materials, as well as their photonic and electro-optic applications.

“We aspire to uncover very fundamental physical principles underpinning phenomena and properties of materials and other physical systems,” Smalyukh noted. “At the same time, we also apply this fundamental knowledge to contribute to a sustainable future via designing artificial forms of meta matter needed to reduce the growing energy demand and slow down climate change.”

Smalyukh earned BS and MS degrees with highest honors in 1994 and 1995 from Lviv Polytechnic National University in Ukraine. He earned a PhD in chemical physics in 2003 from Kent State University in Ohio.

He joined the CU Boulder faculty in 2007. In addition to serving as a professor of physics, he holds a courtesy appointment as a professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, is a fellow in the Materials Science Engineering Program and is a fellow of the Renewable & Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI), a joint institute of NREL and CU Boulder.

Among other awards, Smalyukh has been named a fellow of the American Physical Society and has won the Department of Energy Early Career Research Award and a National Science Foundation CAREER Award.

Smalyukh said he is honored by the selection: “I am especially grateful to many students and postdocs doing interdisciplinary physics-centered research together with me over nearly 20 years at CU Boulder.”

Blumenthal’s lab has studied a variety of important problems in molecular biology, including regulation of gene expression, mechanisms of RNA splicing and arrangement of genes on chromosomes. His lab is responsible for discovering that eukaryotes can have operons for identifying the protein that is responsible for recognizing the 3’ splice site and for a variety of other esoteric findings.

He has also studied how the tiny extra chromosome responsible for Down syndrome changes the levels of many proteins, even though most of those proteins are not encoded on the extra chromosome.

Blumenthal earned a BA in biology from Antioch College in 1966 and a PhD in genetics from Johns Hopkins University in 1970. He did postdoctoral research at Harvard University from 1970-73, then spent 23 years at the Biology Department at Indiana University Bloomington and nine years at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He joined CU Boulder’s faculty in 2006 and served as professor and chair of MCDB.

Among other awards, Blumenthal was recognized as a fellow by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010 and won a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 1980.

Lee Niswander, professor and chair of molecular, cellular and developmental biology, said the department is thrilled about Blumenthal’s recognition. “Tom’s research program related to RNA processing and gene regulation, as well as his strong leadership of MCDB, have left an enduring mark on science and MCDB.

“Tom continues to engage with astute questions and the endowment of a lecture series related to RNA biology through a partnership between CU Boulder and CU Anschutz.”

Counting Blumenthal and Smalyukh, 81 CU Boulder professors have been named AAAS fellows since 1981.

Ivan Smalyukh and Tom Blumenthal are named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Traditional

White

Science-education experts recognized for ground-breaking work

Anonymous — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 16:22:07 +0000

Science-education experts recognized for ground-breaking work Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 10/13/2023 - 10:22

CU Boulder professors Noah Finkelstein of physics and Valerie Otero of education have won the 2023 Svend Pedersen Award and Lecture from Stockholm University

Two experts in science education at the ��Ƶ have won the Svend Pedersen Award and Lecture of 2023 for their “major and lasting” contribution to science education, Stockholm University has announced.

Noah Finkelstein, professor of physics, and Valerie Otero, professor of science education, share the 2023 award and are planning to deliver a joint lecture in Sweden early next year.

Stockholm University bestows the Svend Pedersen Award and Lecture annually to a researcher who has made a “major and lasting contribution” within the fields of mathematics education or science education internationally.

The award, which was unsolicited, recognizes their joint contribution to “teacher education praxis.” The cross-disciplinary collaboration between physics and education “led to the development of the highly influential and successful Learning Assistant Program,” Stockholm University said.

Noah Finkelstein and Valerie Otero

“Finkelstein and Otero are both leading researchers in physics/science education, and both their individual and collaborative work has gained recognition internationally and inspired researchers at the Department of Teaching and Learning at Stockholm University,” the award citation notes.

Finkelstein’s research focuses on university students’ interests and capacities in physics and also on educational transformations. Finkelstein is one of leads of the Physics Education Research (PER) group and was founding co-director, with Otero, of CU’s Center for STEM Learning.

Otero’s research focuses on the interplay of learning environments, instructional teams and materials that make learning more accessible. Otero is the faculty director and co-founder of CU Boulder’s Learning Assistant Program and the International Learning Assistant Alliance.

Finkelstein’s research projects range from the specifics of students’ learning particular concepts to the departmental and institutional scales of sustainable educational transformation. His research has yielded more than 150 publications.

He is increasingly involved in education policy and in 2010 testified before the U.S. Congress on the state of STEM education at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He serves on many national boards, including chairing both the American Physical Society’s Committee on Education and PER Topical Group.

He is a Fellow of both the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Presidential Teaching Scholar and the inaugural Timmerhaus Teaching Ambassador for the University of Colorado system.

Explaining his research focus, Finkelstein says, “At root, I see higher education as a fundamental public good—advancing the lives of individuals and capacities of our societies more broadly. In the long haul, I know of no better way to enhance societies and individuals' lives than to support the core missions of our colleges and universities, and to help them realize the promises that they hold toward these ends.”

He acknowledges that there is much work still to do. “And that's where I spend my time—through teaching and educational programs, through my research and scholarly work, and through my professional service efforts. I particularly focus on higher education—colleges and universities—as these are a tremendous resource and lever for change in our broader educational system.”

Partly in response to expert warnings that the nation was falling behind its international peers in science education, U.S. educators have in the past two decades renewed their focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (or STEM) education. This focus is reflected in levels of funding, national discourse, programs focused in STEM, numbers of students, diversity of students and even faculty hiring trends, Finkelstein says.

I see higher education as a fundamental public good—advancing the lives of individuals and capacities of our societies more broadly. In the long haul, I know of no better way to enhance societies and individuals' lives than to support the core missions of our colleges and universities, and to help them realize the promises that they hold toward these ends.”

“Two decades ago, it was far less common to find discipline-based education researchers—folks such as myself hired into disciplinary departments to conduct research on education from within,” he observes, adding that when he was hired in 2003, CU Boulder was “extremely forward-looking” in such a hire.

“Now it is both much more common and CU has established itself as an international leader in this space, boasting researchers across a wide array of disciplinary departments focusing on education and in schools of education focusing on undergraduate science learning,” he says.

Finkelstein also notes that educators have broadened goals in their courses “to focus on the whole array of learning and educational practice, rather than the initial staples of attending to students’ conceptual understanding and algorithmic capacities.”

Now, he adds, “we are attending to how students think about our fields; what habits of mind they are developing; how we build inclusive environments and support a sense of belonging among the breadth of learners; who we are not including and why.”

Additionally, educators have also moved way from viewing their jobs as “fixing students” or addressing their "deficiencies" and now place greater emphases on the “systems that our learners are participating in to support their substantial capacities.”

Otero is internationally recognized for her foundational work with the Learning Assistant (LA) model and the International LA Alliance. The LA model was established in 2001 when Otero was hired by the ��Ƶ in STEM education and as the first physics education researcher at CU Boulder.

She is a President’s Teaching Scholar and served as an advisor for NASA, on committees for the National Academy of Science and is a fellow of the American Physical Society, which awarded her team the Excellence in Physics Education Award in 2019 for their work on the LA model.

The LA model improves student success by increasing the diversity of CU Boulder’s instructional teams through the inclusion of pedagogically trained undergraduate LAs. Otero’s team provides continuing development opportunities for professors and undergraduates, supporting their growth as educational leaders, mentors and state-of-the-art educational innovators.

“Working with LAs has helped me refresh my teaching strategies and resist the temptation to just do what's worked in the past,” a participating professor commented. “I enjoy helping LAs take on responsibility and gain confidence in their leadership skills, and in turn, this experience reminds me of the greater purpose and goals of education.”

LAs rarely provide direct instruction; instead, they facilitate group interactions, answer questions that students may be embarrassed to ask instructors and give general guidance such as how to study and where to find health care resources.

They relate to students, give them voice, care about them and help them learn. LAs plan and reflect with professors, providing information about how students are experiencing the course, bringing students closer to the professor, especially in large courses.

Learning Assistants maintain both a peer and educator role, which may allow the breaking down of psychological barriers in the minds of students due to formal boundaries, possibly preventing them from seeking help for fear of bothering the professor or appearing incompetent.”

participating LA observed, “LAs maintain both a peer and educator role, which may allow the breaking down of psychological barriers in the minds of students due to formal boundaries, possibly preventing them from seeking help for fear of bothering the professor or appearing incompetent.”

Today, approximately 400 LAs are hired each year at CU Boulder, serving more than 20,000 students each year. Research shows that students who have experienced a STEM course with LAs are 60% more likely to succeed in subsequent STEM courses. The model has caught on.

Universities all over the world have realized that the LA model can transform their institutions, building lasting capacity for sustained offerings of high-quality, learner-centered instruction.

In these settings, students feel included and valued and are comfortable accessing multiple forms of support in and outside of the classroom. The thousands of CU Boulder students who have served as LAs and LA mentors have become effective leaders, teachers and team members, prepared for the increasingly diverse and interdisciplinary workforce.

On Oct. 27, professors from universities around the world will come to CU Boulder, as they do each year, to learn about and share research regarding the LA model.

Otero founded the Learning Assistant Alliance in 2009, and since then, more than 3,000 professors from more than 560 universities and 28 countries have joined. Otero has been invited to Norway, Egypt, Japan and the United Kingdom to provide guidance and support for country-level adoptions of the LA Model.

Otero is also known for her foundational work with PEER Physics, a high school physics curriculum and teacher professional learning community adopted by high schools from Seattle to New York.

“We used to be gullible before this class, but now evidence has our backs,” a PEER Physics student said, while another noted, “This course has provided a very safe and helpful learning environment for me. This class is all about working with others and has really helped me learn the material—it has also lifted my spirits about the science subject in general.”

A PEER Physics teacher said, “PEER Physics gives ownership to students who haven’t had ownership in other science classrooms before. It empowers them to take charge of their own learning rather than just being fed information. I think it challenges their analytical skills.”

Another teacher said, “I think if the PEER Physics teacher community didn’t exist, I would have left education. This has kept me in, really enhanced my life, and the life of my students.”

Otero found empowerment and joy in physics when she took her first physics course at the University of New Mexico. “I always loved learning,” she says. “My dad always taught us that learning is a great privilege, and I committed my life to making positive learning opportunities available for students like me.”

As a first-generation college student, Otero has first-hand knowledge about how a Hispanic woman can navigate physics and academia and achieve great success through a supportive community like CU Boulder. Otero says that she developed leadership skills by working at her parents’ grocery store and at the New Mexico State Fair since she was 12.

Twenty-three years after starting at CU Boulder, she continues to work with the Learning Assistant Alliance and PEER Physics to find ways to include, rather than exclude, people from physics.

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Want to learn more? View Otero's Ed Talk at this link.

CU Boulder professors Noah Finkelstein of physics and Valerie Otero of education have won the 2023 Svend Pedersen Award and Lecture from Stockholm University.

Traditional

White

Shemin Ge elected as fellow of American Geophysical Union

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 21:04:59 +0000

Shemin Ge elected as fellow of American Geophysical Union Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 09/14/2023 - 15:04

CU Boulder geological sciences professor is an expert on ‘induced seismicity,’ when earthquakes are triggered by energy development

Shemin Ge, professor of geological sciences at the ��Ƶ and an expert in how earthquakes can be triggered by human activity, has been elected as an American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) Fellow, the union announced this week.

Shemin Ge

Ge is among 53 scholars in the 2023 Class of Fellows. AGU, the world's largest Earth and space sciences association, annually recognizes a select number of individuals for its highest honors. Since 1962, the AGU Union Fellows Committee has selected less than 0.1% of members as new fellows.

Ge was selected because of her outstanding scientific achievements, contributions to furthering scientific advancement and exemplary leadership, the organization said, adding that Ge also embodies AGU’s vision of a thriving, sustainable and equitable future powered by discovery, innovation and action.

Equally important, the AGU said, is that Ge works with integrity, respect and collaboration while creating deep engagement in education, diversity and outreach.

Ge is a hydrogeologist who studies groundwater in the Earth’s crust, with a focus on understanding how groundwater flow interacts with and is affected by other geologic processes and how theses interactions advance science and offer insights on societally relevant issues.

One focus of her research is the mechanical interaction between groundwater and rock deformation, which was motivated by an apparent spatial association between some mountain belts and ore deposits in foreland basins adjacent to those mountain belts.

Episodic orogenic deformation could drive mineral-bearing groundwater flow to concentrate ore deposits and enable secondary petroleum migration, Ge’s website notes. A new focus in groundwater-rock deformation research is to seek causal mechanisms for induced seismicity beneath dammed reservoirs and around deep wastewater disposal wells.

Another area of Ge’s research is studying the impact of climate change on groundwater resources, focusing on high-altitude regions where variations in temperature and precipitation are expected. Relying on the fundamental theory of energy and fluid transport in porous media, this research looks into snowmelt infiltrating seasonally frozen ground and permafrost into deeper subsurface and discharging back to surface waters downstream.

“I am deeply honored and extremely grateful for the support I have received from CU and many colleagues, as well as my fortune of working with a stream of bright students throughout the years,” Ge said.

“This recognition further inspires me to continue addressing emerging scientific challenges in water resources and natural or human-induced geohazards through research and teaching.”

Ge joined the CU Boulder faculty in 1993 and has been recognized with a 2019-20 Fulbright U.S. Scholar award to study water-induced earthquakes in Hong Kong. She was named a fellow of the Geological Society of America in 2006, and she won the society’s O.E. Meinzer Award in 2018.

Ge holds a PhD in hydrogeology from Johns Hopkins University and master’s and bachelor’s degrees in geotechnical engineering from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and Wuhan University of Technology in Wuhan, China, respectively.

AGU will formally recognize this year’s recipients at AGU23, which in December will convene more than 25,000 attendees from over 100 countries in San Francisco and online.

AGU describes itself as a global community supporting more than half a million advocates and professionals in the Earth and space sciences. Through broad and inclusive partnerships, AGU aims to advance discovery and solution science that accelerate knowledge and create solutions that are ethical, unbiased and respectful of communities and their values.

CU Boulder geological sciences professor is an expert on ‘induced seismicity,’ when earthquakes are triggered by energy development.

Traditional

White

NSF grants CU Boulder nearly $2 million for climate communication by and for kids

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 18:03:19 +0000

NSF grants CU Boulder nearly $2 million for climate communication by and for kids Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/24/2023 - 12:03

Bradley Worrell

The award will fund small exhibits created by high school students that will tour museums and birding festivals throughout the Americas, raising awareness about climate change and promoting STEM diversity

Can the common barn swallow help promote awareness of climate change while encouraging greater diversity in STEM?

A group of ��Ƶ faculty believes so—and they recently won a five-year grant worth nearly $2 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to fund their endeavor.

Their project aims to recruit high school students from Denver area schools to create small, touring art-science exhibits centered around humanity’s relationship with birds. A primary goal is to instill a deeper connection with the natural worldin today’s youth.

Through hands-on exploration, students will better understand of how bird biology intersects with changing local environments and a shifting climate, the group notes.

A cross-disciplinary team of CU Boulder faculty members recently won a five-year, nearly $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation designed to promote awareness of climate change while encouraging greater diversity in STEM. Those team members (from left to right) are: Rebecca Safran, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and environmental studies; Shawhin Roudbari, associate professor of environmental design; Beth Osnes, professor of theater and environmental studies; and Chelsea Hackett, educational theater researcher, facilitator and professor. The faculty members are pictured with a giant bird puppet, reflecting their project’s focus on migratory birds and climate change. Photos at the top of the page and above by Kylie Clarke.

Securing the competitive NSF Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) grant was rewarding for the team, “especially given that this was our first submission to this highly competitive funding program,” says Rebecca Safran, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and environmental studies whose lab studies barn swallows.

“Once we got word that we received funding, our mood was very celebratory,” she adds. “We are all very passionate about this project and ready to get started on the work.”

Fortunately for the CU team, they had advantages in the grant-selection process. One was that team members had already been successfully overseeing the Side by Side art-science program in Boulder for local high school students for the past three years. That program—which was previously funded by local sources including the CU Research and Innovation Office, the Center for Humanities and the Arts, and supplements to Safran’s existing NSF grant—is a template for the NSF-funded endeavor.

A second factor is the corresponding expertise of those CU team members, which also includes Beth Osnes, professor of theater and environmental studies; Chelsea Hackett, educational theater researcher, facilitator and professor; and Shawhin Roudbari, associate professor of environmental design. Moreover, former PhD student Molly McDermott and honors student Avani Fachon collaborated with the team by collecting data and designing material and visuals for the project, many of which were included in the grant document.

“We all have our areas of expertise,” Hackett explains. “Beth and I often publish in education and theater journals, Becca is our expert in evolutionary biology and has been teaching a class in science communication for the past 14 years, and Shawhin is an expert in environmental design.”

The four faculty members are comfortable working across disciplines. Osnes and Safran are two of the founders of Inside the Greenhouse, which uses film, fine art and performance art to address climate change; and Roudbari, Safran and Osnes all assisted in founding the Center for Creative Climate Communication and Behavior Change (C3BC). Additionally, Hackett and Osnes co-founded SPEAK, a nonprofit supporting young women in self and civic advocacy.

Building on Side by Side’s Success

In the program, high school students from historically under-represented communities in the Denver metro area will participate in 10-day summer-intensive programs at CU Boulder. Under the guidance of undergraduate near-peer mentors from the Miramontes Arts and Science Program (MASP), as well as a small group of graduate students and scientists, the participants will delve into the world of migratory birds, particularly barn swallows, which have nesting grounds around campus. Barn swallows are notable because they make their homes in human-built structures, so their fate is tied with that of humans, Safran says.

During the summer program, high school students will learn through art-science observation of wild bird populations, data collection and focus group discussions. The program will partner with Garth Spellman, curator of birds at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and the education team at the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies.

With that STEM-focused knowledge, they will create Migratory Micro-Exhibits (MMEs) that feature materials including wearable bird costumes, art-science explorations of bird biology and bilingual (English/Spanish) interactive components designed to engage audiences about the changing climate.

The nearly $2 million NSF grant will provide continued funding for the Side by Side program at CU Boulder, which involves high school students creating small, touring art-science exhibits centered around humanity’s relationship with birds.

Under Roudbari’s guidance, program participants will design and build the exhibits as migrating trunks, which will be shared with K-4^th graders in partnership with Growing Scientists, a collaboration between Denver art and science organizations including the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies and the Denver Botanic Gardens.

From there, the trunks will be distributed widely through partnerships with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and the Environment for the Americas. Program organizers anticipate that the trunks will travel across the Americas, from Canada to Central and South America.

Given how extensively the trunks are expected to travel, it’s vital that they be sturdy and yet look like they belong in professional settings, according to Osnes.

“That’s a big task for Shawhin and his students: How do we construct these so they can survive trips across the Americas? And how do we design them so that they can take the spirit this project embodies and make it accessible to an end user who is seeing it in a museum or a botanic garden or a professional art and exhibit space?” she says.

Safran says the traveling exhibits will be designed to help both the youth creators and the young audiences perceive how changing local habitats are part of larger, global phenomena like migration and climate change.

“We will have students observe wild bird populations that breed here in Colorado during the summer that will migrate along with the exhibits to our partner organizations where these same bird populations can be observed during the non-breeding season,” she says.

The NSF-funded program officially kicks off in the fall semester. ��Ƶ 10 to 12 Denver high school students will participate. Students will be selected, in part, by their involvement and interest in biology, natural sciences and art, Hackett says.

The program will select a new group of Denver high school students for each year of the program, and each year about five to 10 MASP undergraduate students will serve as near-peer mentors to the high school students.

During the program’s five-year life, organizers anticipate that thousands of K-4^th grade students will be exposed to the high school student-created exhibits, Hackett says.

Safran says after the first NSF-funded Side by Side summer program concludes, she and her teammates, including graduate students in ecology and evolutionary biology and theatre and dance, will study what parts of the program were successful and what might benefit from changes, with improvements later incorporated into the program.

Promoting Diversity in STEM

This project specifically emphasizes involving underrepresented groups in STEM, Hackett says, working closely with Latinx female-identifying youth and those who do not conform to traditional gender roles, with the aim of addressing the lack of climate change communications intended for minority audiences.

“They (NSF) had just made this shift where they really want to see people making strides toward changing what STEM looks like in terms of diversity and representation,” she says. “And you can’t just do that by having diverse students at the end. You have to be thinking about it throughout the process. And I think that worked to our benefit in getting the grant, because we’ve been doing that for the past few years. That’s kind of the heart and soul of this program.”

What’s more, MASP undergraduate students who will work with the high schoolers are from groups that are traditionally underrepresented in higher-education and/or are first-generation college students, she adds.

“The notes (from NSF) for our grant just kept saying, ‘We love that the peer-to-near-peer mentorships are diverse, and who are not the typical students, and who are able to model for young people that science and the arts should be welcoming to everyone,” Osnes says. “And not only welcoming, but benefiting from everyone’s inclusion, because the more perspectives we have to solve climate change, the better able we’re going to be to do it.”

Part of the Side by Side program involves having students creating bird costumes, which they display for family members and others at the end of their summer program.

Meanwhile, the Side by Side leadership team has diverse training and skills, according to Safran.

“One of the cornerstone dimensions is really represented in the leadership team, which is composed of artists and scientists and environmental designers,” she says. “That kind of interdisciplinary, inclusive work takes time. It’s a real commitment by all the parties; it doesn’t just happen.”

Hackett says one of the things that most excites her about the program is that the elementary school students who view the trunk exhibits will learn that the creators of the exhibits are like them, which can open up worlds of possibilities to those young minds as they contemplate their careers.

“What does it say to a fourth grader or a fifth grader when they see someone who is only a few years older than them presented as an expert, telling them stories about birds and climate change?” she asks rhetorically.

“The ultimate goal is that those young students who are going to be experiencing the trunks … are going to be able to see a pathway into STEM fields that not only feels accessible but also is filled with people who are like them and is also a welcoming and experiential space.”

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about ecology and evolutionary biology? Show your support.

Traditional

White

CU Art Museum earns first-time accreditation

Anonymous — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 17:42:22 +0000

CU Art Museum earns first-time accreditation Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 08/15/2023 - 11:42

Rachel Sauer

Following a rigorous, five-year process, the museum joins peer institutions with a recognition of its quality and credibility

The ��Ƶ Art Museum recently joined an elite group of peer institutions when it received first-time accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums.

This distinction recognizes “a museum’s quality and credibility to the entire museum community, to governments and outside agencies, and to the museum-going public,” the American Alliance of Museums notes, adding that the accreditation program ensures the integrity and accessibility of museum collections, reinforces the educational and public service roles of museums and promotes good governance practices and ethical behavior.

“This is an important milestone,” says Sandra Q. Firmin, museum director. “It increases our credibility as a trusted resource and partner on the CU campus and in the community and also among our peer institutions. It applauds the work we do to fuel imagination and collaboration through art.”

Top of the page: "Pool" by Sandra Kaplan is featured in the current Lush: Prolific Nature exhibit. Above: Sandra Q. Firmin is director of the University of Colorado Art Museum and led the successful accreditation process.

Of the nation’s estimated 33,000 museums, more than 1,099 are accredited. The CU Art Museum is one of 26 museums accredited in Colorado. “We are thrilled to join this esteemed community of museums in Colorado and nationwide,” Firmin says.

Reflecting on purpose

The road to accreditation traversed a winding five years, extended by a global pandemic that saw the museum close from March 13, 2020, to Aug. 17, 2021. “We knew the process was going to be rigorous, but that added a whole new dimension,” says Maggie Mazzullo, head registrar and collection manager. “It really gave us an opportunity to reflect on our role and our identity.”

The accreditation process began in 2018 with submitting key operational documents for evaluation, then completing a more in-depth self-study. The first prompt in the self-study was deceptively simple: “Briefly describe what stories and messages the museum wants to convey; and the museum’s interpretive philosophy, educational goals and target audiences.”

“That was a whole-museum effort,” says Hope Saska, chief curator and director of academic engagement. “It was so much more than asking whether we’re good stewards of the collection, which is a great strength of this museum. It was looking at how we create learning opportunities and partnerships with faculty and students. Reviewers recognized our student-centered perspective and noted the excellence of students in our Museum Attendant Program.”

Maggie Mazzullo, CU Art Museum head registrar and collection manager (left), and Hope Saska, chief curator and director of academic engagement, helped guide the five-year accreditation process.

In the self-study, museum staff noted, “We are a collecting institution with artworks representing 10,000 years of human history. Because of the historical depth and geographic scope of the collection, the museum is able to mobilize the collection to relate a wide range of stories and messages. Our exhibitions are designed to contextualize our collection, make visible campus research through collaborative projects, and present new artistic productions.”

Saska highlights as an example the recently opened Lush: Prolific Nature exhibition, which brings together artworks from the museum’s collection that focus on the natural world. Not only are different geographies and time periods represented in many different media, but several pieces are on display for the first time.

One such piece is “Volcán” by artist Fernanda Brunet, a fiberglass, wood and metal sculpture abundantly blooming with vibrant migajón flowers made from a bread-based clay. “We’re really excited to be displaying this for the first time,” Saska says. “We’re thinking about so many things as we’re envisioning our exhibitions, and an important aspect of that is the idea that any faculty member can find an artwork here that relates to what they’re teaching in class, and any student can come here to see what they’re learning about.”

In-depth peer evaluation

Another important aspect of the accreditation process is a multi-day, on-site evaluation completed by peer reviewers. These reviewers considered not only practical aspects of museum operations—such as whether environmental conditions are appropriate for the collection and whether the interpretive materials are accurate, informed and professionally presented—but also how well the museum encourages and facilitates community discourse and how it asserts its public service role.

In their final evaluation, the peer reviewers note that not only do museum staff take pride in the power of strategic planning to guide the museum to new heights, but also ground their work in student-centeredness and a commitment to the museum’s educational mission.

Tim Whiten: Tools of Conveyance was a featured exhibit in 2021.

The CU Art Museum “emphasizes its learner-centeredness through its interdisciplinary teaching, using its strong and developing art collection to educate audiences about subjects well beyond the boundaries of art and art history,” the peer reviewers observed. “Additionally, students and faculty learn through collaborative label writing for exhibitions and object writing for the newsletter, as well as exhibitions that they curate with staff guidance (these include thesis work for art students).”

Firmin adds that while the accreditation process was long and rigorous, achieving the distinction “is validating and acknowledges the expertise of our staff and all the ways the museum supports education and our partners in the community. It recognizes the museum as a dynamic and growing institution.”

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about CU Art Museum initiatives? Show your support.

Following a rigorous, five-year process, the museum joins peer institutions with a recognition of its quality and credibility.

Traditional

White

Arts and sciences dean appoints new deans of division

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Jul 2023 21:35:27 +0000

Arts and sciences dean appoints new deans of division Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 07/28/2023 - 15:35

Hirings mark significant milestone in the reorganization of the College of Arts and Sciences, an initiative launched by the provost

In a significant milestone in the reorganization of the College of Arts and Sciences, Dean Glen Krutz has appointed two deans of division and one interim dean of division and has relaunched the search for the third. The deans of division join Krutz in the council of deans, convened by the provost.

The strengthening of the three divisions’ authority in the college fulfills recommendations made in the November 2018 report of the Provost’s Committee on Academic Reorganization.

The newly appointed deans of division are:

John-Michael Rivera, dean of the division of arts and humanities
Sarah Jackson, dean of the division of social sciences

The new interim dean is:

Irene Blair, interim dean of the division of natural sciences

John-Michael Rivera, Sarah Jackson and Irene Blair (left to right).

Rivera has served with distinction in recent years as transitional dean for the division. He is a professor of English and humanities and the former director for the Program for Writing and Rhetoric at the ��Ƶ. Rivera began his new role May 1.

His first book, The Emergence of Mexican America, won the Thomas J. Lyon Best Book Award. His second book, UNDOCUMENTS, won the Kayden Award and Pope Award. He has edited, introduced and translated two books for the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Project and has published widely in scholarship, essays, memoir, creative nonfiction and poetry. He was the curator of El Laboratorio, a literary space for Latinx writers, and co-creator of CrossBorders, an international collective of writers and artists engaging borders. He earned his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin.

Jackson, divisional dean for social sciences at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Arts and Sciences, will become the dean of division of social sciences here beginning on Aug. 1.

Jackson, who is a professor in the University of Cincinnati’s Department of Anthropology and has served as that department’s head, holds a PhD, MA and BA in anthropology from Harvard University. As divisional dean for social sciences at Cincinnati, she has shown a commitment to leading interdisciplinary initiatives that resulted in the formation of new schools and worked to apply existing administrative processes to the new schools.

Blair's research focus is stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination, and she works with several multidisciplinary groups to examine disparities in health care and health outcomes, funded most frequently by the National Institutes of Health. She begins work in this new position Aug. 1.

Blair has examined implicit racial and ethnic bias among healthcare clinicians and how those biases affect the delivery of care. She has also examined the potential effects of discrimination on health in urban American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Blair joined the CU Boulder faculty in 1995 after earning an MS, MPhil and PhD in social psychology from Yale University.

Krutz has relaunched the search for the dean of the division of natural sciences, because the previous search did not result in a hire. Krutz will share more details about the search process within a few weeks.

“I’d like to thank Dean Krutz for his hard work and thoughtful leadership in organizing appropriate searches and carrying out these key appointments,” said Provost Russell Moore. “I’d also like to welcome our two new deans of division and our interim dean welcoming the third to the College of Arts and Sciences and to the council of deans.”

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Traditional

White

CU Boulder’s Marvin Caruthers wins inaugural Merkin Prize in Biomedical Technology for developing technology that efficiently synthesizes DNA

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 20:51:25 +0000

CU Boulder’s Marvin Caruthers wins inaugural Merkin Prize in Biomedical Technology for developing technology that efficiently synthesizes DNA Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 06/28/2023 - 14:51

The $400,000 award recognizes the far-reaching medical impact of Caruthers’ development, in the early 1980s, of an efficient and fast method to synthesize nucleic acids

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8Pt-W0Wb40]

Marvin H. Caruthers explains the importance of developing technology for synthesizing DNA.

Marvin H. Caruthers, distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the ��Ƶ, has won the inaugural Richard N. Merkin Prize in Biomedical Technology for developing an efficient, automated technology for synthesizing DNA.

The chemical reactions that Caruthers discovered in the early 1980s, which accurately and quickly assemble nucleotides into strands of DNA, provided an essential element in the development of modern molecular medicine, according to the Merkin Prize selection committee. Today, scientists use these reactions to produce customizable DNA and RNA molecules that enable genetic sequencing, drug and vaccine development, pathogen tests, cancer diagnostics, and many aspects of basic biomedical research.

“I am honored to acknowledge the incredible and transformative impact of Dr. Caruthers’ technology on human health over the last four decades,” said Dr. Richard Merkin, founder and CEO of Heritage Provider Network, one of the country’s largest physician-founded and physician-owned integrated health care systems. “He deserves our support and recognition. I hope this prize not only raises awareness of this work but underscores and encourages others to realize the broader importance of developing new scientific technologies to transform health care.”

The Merkin Prize, which recognizes novel technologies that have improved human health, carries a $400,000 cash award. The prize was created by the Merkin Family Foundation and is administered by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

Caruthers will be honored in a prize ceremony held this fall.

“I’m really very happy that this work is being recognized,” Caruthers said. “It’s been amazing to see the technology have such widespread use over the years.”

“The method developed by Dr. Marvin Caruthers was truly revolutionary. It exemplifies how a powerful technology can promote discovery and improve medical care. There are now whole fields of biology, medicine and public health that one cannot imagine practicing without his methods for synthesis of polynucleotides,” said Dr. Harold Varmus, chair of the Merkin Prize selection committee. Varmus is the Lewis Thomas University Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine, a senior associate at the New York Genome Center and a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the origins of cancer.

More than 50 technologies and scores of scientists from around the globe who invented them were nominated for the 2023 Merkin Prize. Those nominations were evaluated by the selection committee, composed of eight scientific leaders from academia and industry in the U.S. and Europe.

Paving the Way for a Genetics Revolution

Today, scientists routinely manipulate genetic material to study human health and diagnose and treat disease. They sequence genes to diagnose inherited conditions and cancers, synthesize DNA and RNA strands by the millions to detect pathogens, manufacture drugs and edit the sequences of genes as potential therapy. Just a few decades ago, before the synthetic methodologies developed in the Caruthers laboratory, none of this was possible.

Caruthers is a CU Boulder distinguished professor of biochemistry and internationally recognized expert in chemical biology and genetics.

Born in 1940 in Des Moines, Iowa, Caruthers became enamored with science in the third grade, when his parents gave him a chemistry set. The color-changing liquids and exploding mixtures of chemicals fascinated him.

He went on to study chemistry at Iowa State University before joining the lab of Robert Letsinger at Northwestern University in 1963, a decade after the discovery of DNA’s double helix structure.

During his graduate education at Northwestern, Caruthers learned how to assemble nucleotides—the building blocks of DNA and RNA—into short sequences using methods Letsinger pioneered. But the approach was slow and inefficient.

“To make one little piece of synthetic DNA a few nucleotides long could take two months,” Caruthers recalled.

While at Northwestern, he assembled five nucleotides into a strand of DNA, representing a major breakthrough at the time. He then became a postdoctoral fellow in the University of Wisconsin lab of Gobind Khorana, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering how the order of nucleotides in DNA encodes proteins. There, Caruthers became interested in how DNA was regulated and what its many sequences meant. Studying these problems was hard, though, without a way to build new pieces of DNA.

By the time Caruthers joined the chemistry and biochemistry department at the ��Ƶ in 1973, he had set a goal to improve DNA synthesis.

“It was clear to me at the time that none of the current technologies were really very good for general, everyday use by most biologists,” he said. “But most scientists in the biological and biochemistry communities couldn’t care less.”

At conferences and in hallways, colleagues frequently questioned why he wanted to develop new methods to synthesize DNA; most did not see any benefit, Caruthers said.

Over the coming years, with significant contributions from graduate student Mark Matteucci and postdoctoral fellow Serge Beaucage, Caruthers’ lab tackled the problem. They first probed how to provide structural support for fragile, lengthening strands of DNA, and discovered that a highly porous silica glass known as “controlled pore glass” worked far better than the polystyrene that researchers had been using.

Colleagues frequently questioned why develop new methods to synthesize DNA; most did not see any benefit. Suddenly, in less than a day, you could make a piece of synthetic DNA that would have taken months using older methods."

Then, the team developed a chemical method to protect nucleotides from undergoing unwanted reactions during DNA synthesis — a major reason DNA synthesis had been so inefficient. Caruthers’ group discovered how to create protected “deoxynucleoside phosphoramidites” that didn’t undergo the unwanted reactions. This made the synthesis reaction far more efficient. A series of chemical reactions could be carried out again and again, with each new iteration successively adding a new nucleotide to a growing strand of DNA in a matter of seconds.

“Suddenly, in less than a day, you could make a piece of synthetic DNA that would have taken months using older methods,” Caruthers said.

A Lasting Impact

With the new technique, the Caruthers lab could rapidly synthesize strands of up to 30 nucleotides. In 1981, Caruthers and Matteucci described the controlled pore glass support in Journal of the American Chemical Society and Caruthers and Beaucage published the new approach for DNA synthesis in Tetrahedron Letters. Other scientists quickly began using the methods, and soon adapted the approach for synthesizing the other important polynucleotide, RNA.

At the same time, Caruthers imagined the technique could become even more widespread with machines to automate the repetitive process. He teamed up with world-leading protein scientist and systems biology pioneer Leroy Hood, then at the California Institute of Technology, to develop instruments for DNA and protein synthesis and protein sequencing, described in a seminal 1984 Nature paper. Together, the pair launched a company—Applied Biosystems—that would produce both machines.

“I knew from day one that if people had to make their own reagents and chemically synthesize DNA in their own labs, it was never going to take off,” Caruthers said. “If they could instead order DNA from a supplier, or have a really good machine to automate it, that could appeal to biologists.”

The Caruthers' lab is desinged to generate and manipulate DNA. Photo courtesy of Caruthers.

Caruthers’ foresight paid off. Such machines now produce strands of DNA hundreds of nucleotides long; DNA microchips can produce millions of these sequences at a time.

Today, scientists frequently synthesize short stretches of DNA to act as “primers,” binding to genes of interest for the purpose of sequencing those genes or making new copies of them. Caruthers’ technology was critical for developing polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which rapidly amplifies DNA or RNA so it can be detected or studied in greater detail. This technology also underlies many new diagnostic methods, including tests for COVID-19, for selection of cancer therapies and for noninvasive prenatal screening for fetal abnormalities.

Longer synthetic DNA and RNA molecules also are critical for modern biologic drugs. These strands of genetic material carry the instructions for cells to produce antigens and therapeutic proteins, with the potential to prevent or treat infectious and metabolic diseases and cancers.

“The ability to synthesize genetic information has changed the face of medicine,” said Varmus. “Synthesis of DNA and RNA is not only used directly for making diagnostics and therapies; its effects are magnified when you consider all the medical advances that have come out of research dependent on gene sequencing.”

Caruthers is a recipient of the National Medal of Science and an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the National Academy of Inventors, and the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In addition to his role at Applied Biosystems, he is a co-founder of companies including Amgen, Array BioPharma, miRagen Therapeutics, SynGenis and ProGenis.

Nominations for the 2024 Merkin Prize will open in September 2023. Visit merkinprize.org for more information.

The $400,000 award recognizes the far-reaching medical impact of Caruthers’ development, in the early 1980s, of an efficient and fast method to synthesize nucleic acids.

Traditional

White

Kudos

CU Boulder prof named Boettcher Investigator

Related Articles

College finance chief wins prestigious fellowship

Related Articles

CU Boulder physicist wins Brown Investigator Award

Related Articles

Two CU Boulder scientists win prestigious honor

Ivan Smalyukh and Tom Blumenthal are named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Related Articles

Science-education experts recognized for ground-breaking work

Related Articles

Shemin Ge elected as fellow of American Geophysical Union

Related Articles

NSF grants CU Boulder nearly $2 million for climate communication by and for kids

Related Articles

CU Art Museum earns first-time accreditation

Related Articles

Arts and sciences dean appoints new deans of division

Related Articles

CU Boulder’s Marvin Caruthers wins inaugural Merkin Prize in Biomedical Technology for developing technology that efficiently synthesizes DNA

Paving the Way for a Genetics Revolution

A Lasting Impact

Related Articles