Thomas Cech
| Thomas Cech | |
|---|---|
Thomas Cech
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| Born |
December 8, 1947 Chicago, USA |
| Institutions | University of Colorado, Howard Hughes Medical Institute |
| Alma mater |
Grinnell College (B.A., 1970) University of California, Berkeley (Ph.D., 1975) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Postdoctoral) |
| Known for | Ribozyme |
| Notable awards | Newcomb Cleveland Prize (1986) NAS Award in Molecular Biology (1987) Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1989) National Medal of Science (1995) Othmer Gold Medal (2007) |
Thomas Robert Cech (born December 8, 1947) is an American chemist who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Sidney Altman, for their discovery of the catalytic properties of RNA. Cech discovered that RNA could itself cut strands of RNA, which showed that life could have started as RNA. He also studied telomeres, and his lab discovered an enzyme, TERT (telomerase reverse transcriptase), which is part of the process of restoring telomeres after they are shortened during cell division. As president of Howard Hughes Medical Institute, he promoted science education, and he teaches an undergraduate chemistry course at the University of Colorado.
Cech was born to parents of Czech origin (his grandfather was Czech, his other grandparents were first-generation Americans) in Chicago, he grew up in Iowa City, Iowa. In junior high school, he knocked on the doors of geology professors at the University of Iowa, and asked them to discuss crystal structures, meteorites and fossils.
In 1966, he entered Grinnell College where he studied Homer's Odyssey, Dante's Inferno, constitutional history and chemistry. He married his organic chemistry lab partner, Carol Lynn Martinson, and graduated with a B.A. in 1970.
In 1975, Cech completed his PhD in Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley and in the same year, he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he engaged in postdoctoral research. In 1978, he obtained his first faculty position at the University of Colorado where he lectured undergraduate students in chemistry and biochemistry, and where he remains on the faculty, currently as Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. In 2000, Cech succeeded Purnell Choppin as president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland. He also continues to head his biochemistry laboratory, the Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biotechnology, at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Cech continues to teach undergraduate chemistry at CU-Boulder. On April 1, 2008, Cech announced that he would step down as the president of HHMI, to return to teaching and research, in spring 2009.
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