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Todd Alder

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Todd B. Alder (BS’92; PhD’00) contracted COVID-19 early on in the pandemic and today still suffers from residual effects. But being just a “long hauler” as opposed to the alternative is what he calls being “lucky.” Says Alder, “Like many of us (I am guessing), this virus has disrupted my life with family and friends, […]

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Nikhil Bhayani

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“Every time I come to the U with my kids,” says Nikhil K. Bhayani, MD, FIDSA (BS’98), “I take them on a reality tour. I [recently] told my youngest son, ‘Let’s retrace my footsteps when I used to go from one of the lecture halls at Presidents Circle, to the Student Union. This is the […]

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Rachel Jones

While Rachel Jones has wanted to do medical research since 3rd grade, it wasn’t until high school during her advanced placement class that she fell in love with the cell. “Cells are magnificent machines crafted by evolution, which is pretty cool considering evolution is progress derived [from] random events.” In particular, she remembers being completely fascinated […]

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COVID-19: Just a Seasonal Nuisance?

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University of Utah scientists model possible COVID-19 futures. March 20, 2021 – Within the next decade, the novel coronavirus responsible for COVID-19 could become little more than a nuisance, causing no more than common cold-like coughs and sniffles. That possible future is predicted by mathematical models that incorporate lessons learned from the current pandemic on […]

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Diana Montgomery

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“Perhaps my favorite experience at the University of Utah is when I started working in a biology lab for the first time and realizing I fit in and enjoyed the work and the people there,” says Diana Montgomery, BS’87. “It certainly helped to solidify my career choice.” While at the U, Diana worked in Allen […]

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Alli Hoffman

For a scientist it might seem counter-intuitive to value the notion that there is never a correct or final answer to a question. But for Alessandrina (“Alli”) Hoffman, an undergraduate researcher in the Brazelton Lab, this is exactly what she loves most about her work which stems from the Lost City Hydrothermal Field on the […]

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Sahar Kanishka, Undergrad Research Award

Sahar Kanishka, recipient of the 2021 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award, remembers daily where her family came from, where they are now, and what opportunity there is for her at the School of Biological Science (SBS). 

“I’ve always wanted to be a doctor ever since I was younger,” she recently explained in a video interview. “Because […]

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T. Mitchell Aide, PhD’89

Distinguished Alumnus   Following his graduation with a bachelor’s from University of Texas – San Antonio, California native T. Mitchell (Mitch) Aide ended up in Utah … but via Panama. It was in Central America where he first met School of Biological Sciences (SBS) professors Lissy Coley and Tom Kursar doing tropical forest research. Aide […]

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Mary Beckerle Elected to NAS

April 21, 2021—Mary C. Beckerle, chief executive officer and director, Huntsman Cancer Institute (HC); and distinguished professor of biology and associate vice president for cancer affairs, University of Utah was elected to the National Academy of Science. She spends her days working to save lives and as CEO of HCI  models the company’s core values […]

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Nitin Phadnis, Fly Genetics

One of 3 for ’20. February 19, 2021 – Nitin Phadnis, SBS Associate Professor, and his colleagues won an Editors’ Choice Award for an outstanding Population and Evolutionary Genetics article published in GENETICS. Titled “Extensive Recombination Suppression and Epistatic Selection Causes Chromosome-Wide Differentiation of a Selfish Sex Chromosome in Drosophila pseudoobscura“, the article was one of only three selected for […]

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Ace Madsen, MD

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The Department of Biology, now the School of Biological Sciences, was a bit of a boot camp for Ace Madsen and other pre-med students.   The Uinta Basin in the northeast corner of Utah can seem like a ways “out there” near the border of Colorado and one of the most famous dinosaur quarries in […]

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Ed Groenhout

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All that was needed to become a doctor was to be told at graduation he would never get into med school. Ed Groenhout, BS’85 , has developed a deep love for travel and for the people of the world. He and his family have visited five continents and dozens of countries, and they plan to […]

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A Glimpse of the Startup Life

Reshma Shetty Distinguished Lab Alumna   It all started with venomous snails. University of Utah alumna Reshma Shetty, BS’02, Computer Science, is now an executive of growing Boston biotech firm Ginkgo Bioworks, Inc., which she co-founded in 2008. Ginkgo Bioworks engineers biological organisms for a variety of commercial and industrial uses, including engineering organisms to […]

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Swing Out (Meiotic) Sister

    March 20, 2021 – Sexual reproduction shuffles the parental genomes to generate new genetic combinations. To achieve that, the genome is subjected to numerous breaks, the repair of which involves two crucial decisions: repair pathway and repair template. In a new paper by SBS graduate students David E. Almanzar, Spencer G. Gordon and […]

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Tracking Wildlife During the Pandemic

March 30, 2021 -For scientists, especially graduate students, who conduct fieldwork, every day is precious. Researchers meticulously prepare their equipment, procedures and timelines to make sure they get the data they need to do good science. So you can imagine the collective anxiety that fell across academia in spring 2020 when COVID-19 struck and many […]

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Fast Track Designation for Denali Diagnostics

March 22, 2021 – When Ryan Watts, BS’00, steps into the classroom at the University of Utah to discuss with students the opportunities they have in bio-tech, the founder/CEO of San Francisco-based Denali Therapeutics speaks from deep experience. His knowledge of the subject is unfolding in real-time, including earlier this month when Denali announced that […]

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The Gandhi Effect

The Gandhi Effect Distinguished Alumni Awards Rajesh Gandhi, BS’86 Monica Gandhi, BS’91    Leena Gandhi, BS’92 Last December, when the three Gandhi children, Rajesh BS’86, Monica BS’91 and Leena BS’92 returned home to Salt Lake City—two from one coast, and one from the other—they celebrated their parents fifty-fifth wedding anniversary. As alumni, all three, from […]

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Karrin Tennant, Research Award

For Karrin Tennant, recipient of the College of Science Undergraduate Research Award, the never-ending story of environmental science has plenty of plot twists. A member of the Anderegg lab in the School of Biological Sciences (SBS) which studies the intersection of ecosystems and climate change, Tennant has been busy working in the area of nighttime […]

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Jim Ehleringer, Academy of Sciences

Distinguished professor of biology James R. Ehleringer, who has pioneered applications of stable isotopes, was elected in May 2016 as a member of the National Academy of Sciences. James “Jim” Ehleringer is among 84 U.S. scientist-scholars and 21 foreign associates from 14 countries elected at the Academy’s Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. He joins more than […]

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Jeanne Novak, BS’87

Jeanne Novak Distinguished Alumna 2020 In 2014 alumna Jeanne Novak found herself at Ebola ground zero. She was ready. The Ebola outbreak in the summer of 2014 was a long way from CBR International (CBR) in Boulder, Colorado. But for several weeks the Company, which helps clients research new drugs and navigate U.S. Food and […]

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Allergy Season & Climate Change

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With spring around the corner, here’s some bad news for allergy sufferers: Human-caused climate change has both worsened and lengthened pollen seasons across the U.S. and Canada, a study Monday reports. The new research shows that pollen seasons start 20 days earlier, are 10 days longer and feature 21% more pollen than they did in […]

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Adam Madsen, BA’06

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Adam Madsen Adam Madsen, BA’06 in Biology, was the quintessential student-athlete. To be a student-athlete requires extraordinary talent on the field and in the classroom. This is particularly true with science degrees due to the rigorous curriculum. Madsen grew up in the Uinta Basin area, living in both Roosevelt and Vernal, two small farming towns […]

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Science Alumni vs Coronavirus

Utah Biotech Companies Rally to fight the Coronavirus – by Kelsie Foreman, in Utah Business Magazine, April 13, 2020 SBS alumni Randy Rasmussen is the founder of BioFire Diagnostics which, along with ARUP and other Utah biotech companies, is making a difference in fighting the coronavirus.   After a new virus, COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) was deemed a pandemic by the World Health […]

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2020 UofU Distinguished Research Award, David Bowling

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April 24, 2020 – SBS’s Dave Bowling has been awarded a University of Utah 2020 Distinguished Research Award. The award recognizes outstanding achievements in research by University of Utah tenured faculty. Up to three awards for outstanding achievements in research are awarded to University of Utah tenured faculty each year. This prestigious research award provides […]

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John “Sandy” Parkinson, AAAS Fellow

December 9, 2019 – University of Utah professors John S. Parkinson of the School of Biological Sciences and Marc D. Porter of the Departments of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering are among the 443 newly elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Election as a fellow is an honor bestowed upon […]

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Staff: Jeff Mauger, Facilities

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Jeff has been a part of the University community in many different roles since his arrival to Utah in fall of 1997.  Not planning to stay very long, he started out as a student, eventually receiving both a Bachelor and Master of Fine Art.  His artwork has been shown and sold in a number of […]

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Distinguished Alumnus Randy Rasmussen, PhD’98

Many of today’s most successful companies were created by groups of friends: Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard started Hewlett-Packard in a garage in Palo Alto, California; Bill Gates and Paul Allen, childhood friends from Lakewood, Washington co-founded Microsoft; and Larry Page, Sergey Brin, part of the same PhD cohort at Stanford University founded Google. The […]

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