Chemistry News + Events

Reem-Kayden Center  4:00 pm – 5:30 pm EST/GMT-5

Join our students in presenting their summer research!
Reem-Kayden Center  4:00 pm – 6:00 pm EDT/GMT-4

  Dani Schultz
Merck Pharmaceuticals
Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium  12:10 pm – 1:10 pm EDT/GMT-4
Aspects of this session will highlight my journey from a small town in northern Wisconsin to the bustling east coast where leaning into discomfort has been critical in driving my career at Merck and the chemistry that I have pursued. Throughout my career, I have tapped into my ability to forge meaningful collaborations, internally and externally, to challenge the status quo and drive disruptive thinking – both in chemistry but also in improving STEM culture. I’ll briefly touch upon some recently completed academic-industrial research collaborations that aimed to empower early-career female professors and provide a platform to mentor and train female professors and students in pharmaceutical research. Throughout all of this, I have a passion for diversity, equity and inclusion and will share how I’ve navigated raising important, and at times difficult, topics and how to influence workplace culture. I’ve learned a lot through failed experiments along the way and I am looking forward to an active discussion with fellow changemakers!

Dani Schultz received her PhD from the University of Michigan working with Professor John Wolfe and was an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Professor Tehshik Yoon. Since joining Merck in 2014, Dani has been a member of Process Chemistry and Enabling Technologies in Rahway, NJ and as of 2021 became the Director of the Discovery Process Chemistry group in Kenilworth, NJ. Throughout her time at Merck, Dani has been involved in the development of synthetic routes for drug candidates spanning HIV and oncology – forging meaningful collaborations, both internally and externally, to address the synthetic challenges that occur during pharmaceutical development. Most recently, she has served as co-host to the Pharm to Table podcast that aims to elevate the people and stories behind #MerckChemistry.

Join our graduating seniors in presenting their research!
Main Commencement Tent  5:30 pm – 7:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Please see the abstract booklet below for full descriptions of students' research.


Download: Senior Project Poster session booklet S21.pdf

Thomas R. Cech, PhD
Online Event  12:20 pm – 1:30 pm EST/GMT-5
Earlier in the 21st century, the human genome was thought to consist of islands of important genes, coding for proteins, surrounded by a vast sea of “junk DNA.” But we now know that much of the vast noncoding part of the genome is also transcribed into RNA – noncoding RNA. Many hundreds of research laboratories are now engaged in observing and interrogating this dark matter of the genomic universe. Dr. Cech will describe two examples, catalytic RNA and telomerase RNA.

Dr. Thomas R. Cech is Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; and Director of the Interdisciplinary Quantitative Biology PhD Program at the University of Colorado Boulder.

You are invited to a Zoom webinar.
When: February 18, 2021, at 12:00 pm Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Topic: Shedding Some Light on the Dark Matter of the Genomic Universe

Please click the link below to join the webinar:
https://bard.zoom.us/j/87656848909?pwd=L1ZoTERnTnpzM0U3Y0pMak9WcmFiUT09
Passcode: 645895
Or iPhone one-tap : 
    US: +16465588656,,87656848909#  or +13126266799,,87656848909# 
Or Telephone:
    Dial(for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location):
        US: +1 646 558 8656  or +1 312 626 6799  or +1 301 715 8592  or +1 669 900 9128  or +1 253 215 8782  or +1 346 248 7799 
Webinar ID: 876 5684 8909
    International numbers available: https://bard.zoom.us/u/kdNzUccMMt

Thomas R. Cech, PhD, University of Colorado Boulder
Online Event  6:30 pm – 8:00 pm EST/GMT-5
In the past, Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) was considered to be mostly an intermediary between the genetic code in DNA and the proteins that do most of the work in biology; DNA makes RNA makes protein. The discovery of catalytic RNA (Nobel Prize, 1989) opened our eyes to RNA having more exciting functions. But the thrill of RNA was just getting started. Gene editing now uses guide RNAs to recruit the CRISPR genome editing machinery to specific sites of action on chromosomes, with exciting medical potential (Nobel Prize, 2020). And the coronavirus pandemic is now a battle of RNA against RNA: an RNA virus being fought with messenger RNA vaccines.

Thomas R. Cech, PhD, is Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry; investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; and director of the Interdisciplinary Quantitative Biology PhD Program at the University of Colorado Boulder. After earning his PhD in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Dr. Cech joined the faculty of the University of Colorado Boulder in 1978.  In 1982 Dr. Cech and his research group discovered self-splicing RNA in Tetrahymena, providing the first exception to the long-held belief that biological reactions are always catalyzed by proteins. Because RNA can be both an information-carrying molecule and a catalyst, perhaps a primordial self-reproducing system consisted of RNA alone. Dr. Cech became a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator in 1988 and Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry in 1990. From 2000 to 2009, he served as president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which is the largest private biomedical research organization in the U.S. In 2009, Dr. Cech returned to full-time research and teaching at the University of Colorado Boulder. Dr. Cech's work has been recognized by many national and international awards and prizes, including the Heineken Prize of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (1988), the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award (1988), the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1989), and the National Medal of Science (1995). In 1987 Dr. Cech was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and also awarded a lifetime professorship by the American Cancer Society.

You are invited to a Zoom webinar.
When: Feb 17, 2021 06:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Topic: The Magic of RNA: from CRISPR Gene Editing to mRNA Vaccines

Please click the link below to join the webinar:
https://bard.zoom.us/j/89546778854?pwd=VXNIaXRZUUVYS293Z1FiZk9HMDFUQT09
Passcode: 340591
Or iPhone one-tap : 
    US: +16465588656,,89546778854#,,,,*340591#  or +13017158592,,89546778854#,,,,*340591# 
Or Telephone:
    Dial(for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location):
        US: +1 646 558 8656  or +1 301 715 8592  or +1 312 626 6799  or +1 346 248 7799  or +1 669 900 9128  or +1 253 215 8782 
Webinar ID: 895 4677 8854
Passcode: 340591
    International numbers available: https://bard.zoom.us/u/kccdtBxiuF