NAS elects new members

Helen Berman

Berman is a distinguished professor emerita of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University. . Her research has focused on the development of systems for making biological data freely available.  She played a key role in founding the Protein Data Bank.  In 2013, she won the ASBMB DeLano Award for Computational Biosciences for her efforts to create open access data. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Russell DeBose–Boyd

DeBose–Boyd is a distinguished chair in biomedical science and a professor of molecular genetics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. His research focuses on feedback mechanisms that control the synthesis of cholesterol. DeBose–Boyd has served as an associate editor of the Journal of Lipid Research since 2017. He is the ASBMB’s interim treasurer, a member of the Finance Committee, and was was recently elected to the Nominating Committee. He is a mentor for the ASBMB Maximizing Opportunities for Scientific and Academic Independent Careers K99/R00 program and a member of the ASBMB Duel meeting board. He received the ASBMB’s 2023 Avanti Award in Lipids.

Catherine Drennan

Drennan is a professor of chemistry and biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her lab uses X-ray crystallography and electron microscopy to understand how metalloenzymes catalyze chemical reactions such as manipulation of organometallic bonds. She received the 2023 ASBMB William C. Rose Award for her contributions to biochemical research and commitment to training younger scientists. She won the Protein Society's Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin Award and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020. Drennan was a member of the ASBMB Education and Professional Development Committee and is a past winner of the ASBMB–Schering–Plough Research Institute Award.

Anthony Kossiakoff

Kossiakoff is a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Chicago. His lab studies the molecular events that lead to ligand–receptor activation and regulation using structural biology as well as protein engineering. In 2019, Kosiakoff won the Protein Society’s Christian Anfinsen Award for methodological advances in the field of protein sciences. In 2012, he was elected a fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science.

Andre Nussenzweig

Nussenzweig is the branch chief of the Center for Cancer Research at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health. His research examines genome stability as well as DNA repair pathways and their roles in cancer prevention. Nussenzweig is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization, the U.S. National Academy of Medicine and the U.S. National Academy of Science. In addition, he was recently named a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Richard Roberts

Roberts is the chief scientific officer of New England BioLabs Inc. His research focuses on enzyme discovery and uses bioinformatics and functional testing. Roberts won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1993 for his contribution to the discovery of introns in eukaryotic DNA and the mechanism of gene-splicing. In 1994, Roberts received the Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement. In 1995, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization. More recently, the Russian Academy of Sciences awarded him the Lomonosov Gold Medal.

Elizabeth Vierling

Vierling is a distinguished professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her lab focuses on molecular chaperones and cellular stress responses, including nitric oxide and mitochondrial metabolism in higher plants. Vierling was a member of the ASBMB 2022 Annual Meeting Program Planning Committee and helped organize a session on organelles and cellular homeostasis. She was appointed a fellow to the American Society of Plant Biologists in 2012 and the AAAS in 2002. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000 and an Alexander von Humboldt Senior Research Fellowship in 2007. She has participated in outreach events for students of all ages.