Gierasch named a Distinguished Professor

Lila Gierasch, professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, has been appointed a Distinguished Professor by President Jack Wilson. The appointment was approved May 24 by the Board of Trustees.

Gierasch was recommended for the honor by Chancellor John V. Lombardi and Charlena Seymour, provost and senior vice chancellor for academic affairs, who called her a “world-renowned leader” in the study of protein and peptide structure and folding, and the interaction between proteins and biological membranes.

A leading authority on protein chemistry, Gierasch has focused much of her research on proteins and the three-dimensional shapes that they spontaneously form within cells. The research has implications for diseases and disorders as seemingly disparate as Alzheimer’s disease, cystic fibrosis, bovine encephalitis, an inherited form of emphysema, and even certain cancers.

Gierasch joined the faculty in 1994 as professor and head of the Chemistry Department, which she led for five years until her appointment as professor and head of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. She stepped down as department head last August.

She is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), ACS, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Biophysical Society, American Society for Cell Biology, American Peptide Society and the Protein Society and has served on committees and councils of many of the organizations.

Gierasch also served on the Chemical Sciences Roundtable of the National Research Council, the National Advisory General Medical Sciences Council of the National Institutes of Health and an advisory committee of the Directorate for Math and Physical Sciences at the National Science Foundation (NSF). She organized professional conferences and symposia and was a member of the U.S. national committees of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and the International Union for
Pure and Applied Biophysics. In 1997, she chaired the national committee for IUPAB.

In March, the American Chemical Society awarded Gierasch its Francis P. Garvan-John M. Olin Medal, which recognizes distinguished service to the field by women chemists. During her career, she also has been awarded A.P. Sloan and Guggenheim fellowships, an NSF Predoctoral Fellowship and a French Ministry of Foreign Affairs Fellowship. She is a fellow of the AAAS and was awarded an honorary degree by Mount Holyoke College in 2002. On campus, she has received the Chancellor’s Medal as a Distinguished Faculty Lecturer, a Samuel F. Conti Faculty Fellowship, and an Outstanding Service Award from the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.

Gierasch taught previously at Amherst College, the University of Delaware and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. She did her undergraduate work in chemistry at Mount Holyoke College, and earned her doctorate in biophysics from Harvard University.

June 6, 2006.

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