Five University of Chicago faculty named AAAS Fellows

Five University of Chicago scientists representing the Biological Sciences Division and Physical Sciences Division have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Fellows are elected by AAAS members for their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. They are among 401 newly elected AAAS fellows.

The 2014 University of Chicago AAAS Fellows

Francisco Bezanilla, the Lillian Eichelberger Cannon Professor in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, for distinguished contributions to the understanding of excitability, gating currents and their molecular basis, as well as the origin of voltage dependent processes in ion channels and pumps.

Chuan He, professor of chemistry and director of the Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, for distinguished contributions to the understanding of metalloenzymes, DNA repair mechanisms and reversible methylation of N6-methyladenosine in human mRNA.

Shohei Koide, professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics, for distinguished contributions to molecular biology, particularly at the interface of understanding protein structure and function.

Manyuan Long, the Edna K. Papazian Distinguished Service Professor in Ecology & Evolution, for distinguished contributions to the fields of molecular evolution and genetics, particularly for starting and leading the area of new gene evolution using experimental and computational genomics and molecular biology.

Tao Pan, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, for distinguished contributions in the basic research fields of RNA folding, RNA catalysis, tRNA biology, functional genomics of RNA and RNA epigenetics.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science is the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal, Science. AAAS was founded in 1848, and includes 254 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. The tradition of AAAS fellows began in 1874.

This year’s fellows will be formally announced in the AAAS News & Notes section of Science on Nov. 28. New fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a rosette pin during the 2015 AAAS Annual Meeting in San Jose, Calif.