Thomas Cech

Thomas Cech
Cech in 2005
Born	(1947-12-08) December 8, 1947 (age 77) Chicago, Illinois, US
Education	Grinnell College (B.A., 1970) University of California, Berkeley (Ph.D., 1975)
Known for	Ribozyme, Telomerase
Awards	Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry (1985) Newcomb Cleveland Prize (1986) NAS Award in Molecular Biology (1987) Rosenstiel Award (1988) Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1989) National Medal of Science (1995) Othmer Gold Medal (2007)
Scientific career
Institutions	University of Colorado, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Thesis	Characterization of the most rapidly renaturing sequences in the main band DNA of the mouse (Mus musculus) (1975)
Doctoral advisor	John E. Hearst

Thomas Robert Cech^[a] (born 8 December 1947) is an American chemist who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Sidney Altman for their discovery of the catalytic properties of RNA.

Cech discovered that RNA could itself cut strands of RNA, suggesting that life might have started as RNA.^[2] He found that RNA can not only transmit instructions, but can act as a catalyst to speed up the necessary reactions.^[3]

He has also studied telomeres, and his lab discovered an enzyme, TERT (telomerase reverse transcriptase), which is part of the process of restoring telomeres after they are shortened during cell division.^[4]

As president of Howard Hughes Medical Institute he has promoted science education, and he teaches an undergraduate chemistry course at the University of Colorado.

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