Thomas R. Cech (1947- )

Awarded the Prize “for his discovery of catalytic properties of RNA.”

American chemist. Cech was born on December 8, 1947 in Chicago. In 1970 he graduated from Grinnell College, in 1975 he obtained his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. After that, he moved to a postdoctoral position in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has been Professor at the University of Colorado since 1978, president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 2000.