Fall 2020 issue of ‘Discovery’ Alumni Magazine Explores Enduring Legacy of Renowned Aggie Scientist, R. Gaurth Hansen
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The college welcomed its first professorship, named for the biochemist, administrator, professor, researcher and mentor R. Gaurth Hansen, who paved the way for scholars making ground-breaking scientific contributions. |
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Above: USU biochemist R. Gaurth Hansen (1920-2002) assists a student with an absorbance recorder, Superimposed over the image is the cover, featuring alumna Brenda Suh-Lailam, of the Fall 2020 issue of ‘Discovery.’ Photo of Dr. Hansen from USU Special Collections; magazine cover photo courtesy of Lurie Children’s Hospital
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In June, USU’s College of Science announced the R. Gaurth Hansen Professorship in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
Established as an endowment by the Hansen Family, the professorship honors the memory of the renowned biochemist, who served USU as a senior administrator, professor and researcher from 1968 to 1994.
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Above: A mural in Shiprock, New Mexico urging community members to “stay safe, stay strong.” The Navajo Nation, where USU alumna MaLaura Creager is employed with the Indian Health Service, has been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Photo courtesy of MaLaura Creager |
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Finding the Right Chemistry
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While recently compounding a dose of Remdesivir, the antiviral medication used to treat COVID-19, pharmacist MaLaura Creager’s thoughts wandered back to her general chemistry class at Utah State. Creager, who earned a bachelor’s degree in biology with a minor in chemistry from USU in 2012, remembered faculty member John Hubbard’s lively demonstration of exothermic reactions.
“He kept us on the edge of our seats,” says Creager, a clinical pharmacist with the Indian Health Service in Shiprock, New Mexico. “Remdesivir causes an exothermic reaction as you compound it – it gets a little warm. But not hot enough to make me run from the building, as some of my classmates and I considered doing during some of Dr. Hubbard’s classes.”
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USU alum Carl Wittwer, right, with wife and fellow scientist Noriko Kusukawa. Photo courtesy of Corrin Rausch, ARUP |
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To say Carl Wittwer, MD, PhD, is retiring isn’t exactly accurate.
Ask the pioneering scientist, widely recognized for having revolutionized molecular diagnostics, what he’ll do following his “retirement” from ARUP Laboratories on July 1, 2020, and he says he will do the same thing he has done nearly every day since he was a teenager tinkering with old TV sets in his parents’ Michigan basement: He’ll go to his laboratory and fashion an idea into one prototype after another until he gets what he wants.
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Above: At USU’s Undergraduate Student Research Showcase during Research Week in March 2011, Honors Student Morgan Summers received the top poster award. Photo by M. Muffoletto.
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When I reflect on my coursework at Utah State, there are two particularly memorable classes that immediately come to mind.
I still find myself chuckling at the time Professor Jim Cangelosi left our History of Mathematics and Number Theory class to get our “very old” guest speaker. The “guest speaker” turned out to be Jim himself, dressed in a white toga, pretending to be Pythagoras. Sitting in a circle on the floor of a classroom in the (then newest) engineering building, Pythagoras guided us through a proof
of the Pythagorean Theorem.
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Above: Dr. Brenda Suh-Lailam (PhD' 2011), Director of Clinical Chemistry and Point-of-Care Testing at Ann and Robert Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Northwestern University. Photo courtesy of Janice B. Terry, Lurie Children's Hospital. |
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View the Entire ‘Discovery’ Issue Online
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As we say farewell to 2020, we invite you to be inspired by Aggies who are working to make a difference on the pandemic’s frontlines. Best wishes to you and yours in the new year. |
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