12 Facts About Thomas Cech

Thomas Robert Cech was born on December 8, 1947 and is an American chemist who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Sidney Altman, for their discovery of the catalytic properties of RNA.

Thomas Cech discovered that RNA could itself cut strands of RNA, suggesting that life might have started as RNA.

Thomas Cech studied telomeres, and his lab discovered an enzyme, TERT, which is part of the process of restoring telomeres after they are shortened during cell division.

Thomas Cech was born to parents of Czech origin in Chicago, he grew up in Iowa City, Iowa.

Thomas Cech married his organic chemistry lab partner, Carol Lynn Martinson, and graduated with a B A in 1970.

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In 1975, Thomas Cech completed his PhD in Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley and in the same year, he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he engaged in postdoctoral research.

In 2000, Thomas Cech succeeded Purnell Choppin as president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland.

Thomas Cech continued to head his biochemistry laboratory at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

In 1982, Thomas Cech became the first to show that RNA molecules are not restricted to being passive carriers of genetic information – they can have catalytic functions and can participate in cellular reactions.

Thomas Cech's work has been recognised by many awards and prizes including: lifetime Professorship by the American Cancer Society, the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University (1988), 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, shared with Sidney Altman), the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1990 and the National Medal of Science (1995).

In 1987, Thomas Cech was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences and in 1988 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Thomas Cech was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2001.