Chemistry

Former CU Postdoc Wins 2020 Nobel Prize

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Mar 2021 06:00:00 +0000

Former CU Postdoc Wins 2020 Nobel Prize Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/18/2021 - 00:00

Emily Heninger

Jennifer Doudna smashes the glass ceiling with her historic recognition in chemistry.

After biochemist Jennifer Doudna learned she had won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry at 2:53 a.m. on Oct. 7, the first thing she did was make coffee — then wake up her teenage son.

“I said, ‘Guess what? I just won the Nobel Prize,’” she laughed. “You don’t hear that every morning.”

Doudna, a former ��ý�Ļ��Ʒ postdoc, won the prize for co-development of the genome editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 with French microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier — the first time a science Nobel had been won by two women together.

“It’s really important for people that have been traditionally underrepresented in certain fields to feel appreciated, to feel like their work can be recognized,” she said. “This prize in particular makes that statement.”

Now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Doudna’s career began at CU in 1991 in the lab of Thomas Cech, a distinguished professor of chemistry, who had won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry two years earlier.

“He built an amazing group of people and an incredible lab filled with smart, hardworking, interesting people, many of whom are still some of my best friends in science,” she said.

Decades later, the Nobel Foundation honored Doudna and Charpentier for their discovery that a gene-cutting molecule known as Cas9, which is used naturally by bacteria to kill viruses, can be re-engineered as a precise gene-editing tool.

The technology is already being used in labs around the world, with potential to treat genetic diseases and cancer, engineer crops and address climate change.

“A few years ago, it sounded like science fiction,” said Doudna. “But now it’s actually happening.”

Jennifer Doudna smashes the glass ceiling with her historic recognition in chemistry. Doudna, a former ��ý�Ļ��Ʒ postdoc, won the prize for co-development of the genome editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 with French microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier — the first time a science Nobel had been won by two women together.

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Patent for Human Health

Anonymous — Wed, 11 Nov 2020 06:00:00 +0000

Patent for Human Health Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 11/10/2020 - 23:00

Christie Sounart

In 1954, solar energy pioneer and ��ý�Ļ��Ʒ engineering professor George Löf was granted patent US2680565 for a solar heating apparatus and method. It was the first patent associated with the university.

Nearly 30 years later, CU received another inaugural patent. This one helped change the course of global human health.

Patent US4415732, filed in 1981 and granted in 1983, was CU’s first patent following the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act, which allowed universities to hold patents for federally funded inventions. Distinguished chemistry and biochemistry professor Marvin Caruthers — who remains on CU’s faculty — and research chemist Serge Beaucage — now chief of the FDA’s Laboratory of Biological Chemistry — were co-inventors on the patent, which helped pave the way for Amgen, now the world’s largest independent biotechnology company.

“There was never any doubt that my life’s work would somehow be involved with one of the natural or biological sciences,” wrote Caruthers in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

“Phosphoramidite Compounds and Processes” patented a new class of nucleoside phosphoramidites, a chemical that allowed scientists to create short DNA or RNA sequences in the lab. These synthesized sequences — called oligonucleotides — helped initiate research on bacteria, human growth hormones, DNA testing and more.

Caruther’s work involving oligonucleotide synthesis, along with other prominent DNA sequencing research of the time, jumpstarted the now multi-billion-dollar biotechnology industry.
While continuing his research at ��ý�Ļ��Ʒ, Caruthers co-founded both Applied Biosystems — which sold protein sequencing and DNA synthesizing instruments — and Amgen, which focused on genetic engineering in the early 1980s.

In addition to his responsibilities at CU, Caruthers directed a group of Amgen scientists in Boulder to synthesize DNA for treatments to help the critically ill. One such treatment helped patients with severe kidney disease. Another greatly reduced infections associated with chemotherapy.

Today, Caruthers maintains a small research group at CU and focuses on humanitarian interests including the development of new chemistries for the treatment of rare and fatal genetic diseases. The revolutionary days of the ’80s still stay with him.

Said Caruthers: “In my laboratory, basic research is always a co-operative activity involving many colleagues. This patent is an example. Several, in addition to Beaucage, improved and modified the chemistry so that today, almost 40 years later, these methods for chemically synthesizing DNA and RNA remain state of the art.”

Photo courtesy of Marvin Caruthers

CU distinguished professor Marvin Caruthers helped change the course of global human health.

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Olester Benson Jr., Aka Mr. Patent

Anonymous — Sun, 21 Apr 2019 17:53:19 +0000

Olester Benson Jr., Aka Mr. Patent Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 04/21/2019 - 11:53

Jim Scott (EPOBio'73)

After CU, Olester Benson Jr. went on to earn more than 70 patents, including several that made cellphones, laptops and TVs brighter, more colorful and energy efficient.

Olester Benson Jr. (PhD’88) wasn’t your average college student.

As a 26-year-old sergeant in the U.S. Army in the late 1970s, he was married with children and working as a pharmacy specialist at the (now former) Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Aurora, Colo. An eager learner, he began taking night classes at CU Denver, earning a chemistry degree in 1981.

That led to doctoral studies at ��ý�Ļ��Ʒ, his springboard to a fruitful career as a corporate research scientist at Minnesota-based 3M, an international powerhouse in industrial, health-care and consumer goods.

Specializing in photochemistry — the chemical effects of light and other radiation — Benson has earned more than 70 patents, including several that have made cellphones, laptops and LCD TVs brighter, more colorful and energy efficient.

Based on bending light with repeating, microscopic prisms embedded in screens, the process, known as refraction, took the electronic display world by storm in 1994.

“We were on the cusp of the LCD computer display industry at 3M back then,” he said. “And we had the right solution at the right time.”

Benson’s work has also proved useful for medical devices, motor vehicle safety, aerospace and renewable energy. See how license plates, traffic cones, stop signs and running clothes shine brightly at night? You can thank Benson and his colleagues.

A common theme at 3M, he said, is taking the knowledge of one group and providing it to another, he said: “In my group we have a farmer’s mentality when it comes to technology — nothing goes to waste. What might not work in one field might be just right for another.”

Robert Damrauer, a CU Denver professor and mentor, played a key role in Benson’s life: Damrauer personally drove him to ��ý�Ļ��Ʒ and introduced him to his doctoral mentors, among them chemist Tad Koch, now an emeritus professor.

“He interjected himself into my life like a virus,” Benson said of Damrauer when he accepted the ��ý�Ļ��Ʒ Alumni Association’s George Norlin Award in October.

Benson’s grandparents, who raised him, encouraged a habit of service to others, and he has mentored new colleagues, college students and underrepresented high school students. He’s also served as 3M’s recruiter at CU and on the Boulder campus’ graduate school advisory council.

“Mentoring has always been second nature to me,” he said. “As a sergeant in the infantry, you are always training your replacement.” (In all, Benson served in the military for 24 years, 11 on active duty and 13 in the Army Reserve before retiring as a master sergeant in 1997.)

Service feels good, he said — and feels right.

“The Bible says, to whom much is given, much is required,” he said. “Any talents, knowledge and gifts I have are useless if I use them to only benefit myself.”

After CU, Olester Benson Jr. went on to earn more than 70 patents, including several that made cellphones, laptops and TVs brighter, more colorful and energy efficient.

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