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University of Utah biochemistry professor Brenda Bass has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Bass, who studies double-stranded RNA molecules, is one of 84 U.S. and 21 foreign scientists picked by the Washington, D.C.-based academy.
"I'm overwhelmed, as anyone who gets in the National Academy of Sciences probably is," Bass said Tuesday in a statement. "I'm really excited there are people who respect my science enough to have elected me."
Her selection follows a career delving into less-trammeled areas of science.
As a graduate student at the University of Colorado, Bass discovered that the process ribozymes use in chemical reactions is similar to that of protein enzymes. And at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, Bass identified an entirely new class of enzymes, called ADARs. Those enzymes target messenger RNA and change the information they carry.
Bass joined the U. faculty in 1989. Her study of dsRNA delves into the interaction of the genome with viruses. In 2011, Bass received a $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the process that signals stress in dsRNA. Her research could help develop new drugs to treat inflammation.
"She doesn't follow the crowd and works independently — and that's where people make interesting and important discoveries," said Wesley Sundquist, co-chairman of the U. Department of Biochemisty.
About 40 current and former U. researchers have been elected to one of the three national academies, including the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine. National academies highlight research achievements in their fields and advise the federal government.
Bass is the second U. Biochemistry faculty member to be elected to the National Academy. Last year, Sundquist was selected.