CU’s Cech to be inducted into Boulder County Business Hall of Fame

BOULDER — Dr. Tom Cech, founding director of the BioFrontiers Institute at the University of Colorado Boulder, is among nine individuals to be inducted into the Boulder County Business Hall of Fame.

The hall’s Class of 2024 will be honored Sept. 18 at the Jewish Community Center, 6007 Oleg Ave. in Boulder. Other inductees include Philip DiStefano, Ann Cooper, Carol and Harvey Yoakum, Andrew Quillen, Daniel Vonalt, Kurt Quillen and Clair Beckmann.

Cech began teaching in CU Boulder’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in 1978, and 11 years later won the Nobel Prize in chemistry, an honor he shared with Sidney Altman. The two men discovered that RNA (ribonucleic acid) in living cells is not only a molecule of heredity but also can function as a biocatalyst. The discovery concerns fundamental aspects of the molecular basis of life, and, according to the Nobel Foundation’s 1989 press release, “many chapters in our textbooks have to be revised.”

He taught freshman chemistry to more than 2,000 students over the years, and founded one of the first RNA biotech companies, Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals Inc., in Boulder. In 2000, he moved to Washington, D.C. as president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, then returned to Boulder in 2009. His awards include the National Medal of Science in 1995 and election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine.

Cech stepped down from his position as executive director of CU’s BioFrontiers Institute in 2020 to concentrate on his own research.

Cech received his doctorate in 1970 from the University of California at Berkeley, and completed postdoctoral work at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.

Tickets for the induction ceremony are available at www.halloffamebiz.com.

Editor’s note: BizWest will profile inductees of the Boulder County Business Hall of Fame’s Class of 2024 over the next several weeks.