Keynote Address
Dr. David A. Tirrell, Ph.D.
Ross McCollum-William H. Corcoran Professor
Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
California Institute of Technology
Education
Ph.D., Polymer Science, University of Massachusetts
B.S., Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Reinterpreting the Genetic Code:
How to Do It & Why You Might Want to
Abstract:
The genetic code, elucidated in the 1960s through the work of Nirenberg, Ochoa, Khorana and their
coworkers, provides a set of molecular instructions for translating nucleic acids into proteins. Through
the efforts of our laboratory and others over the last fifteen years, the code has been “reinterpreted” in
various ways to enable the participation of an expanded set of amino acids in cellular protein synthesis.
These developments have provided a basis for powerful new approaches to protein design and proteomewide analysis of cellular processes.
Short Biography:
David A. Tirrell is the Ross McCollum-William H. Corcoran Professor of Chemistry and Chemical
Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. After earning the B.S. in Chemistry at MIT in 1974,
Tirrell enrolled in the Department of Polymer Science and Engineering at the University of
Massachusetts, where he was awarded the Ph.D. in 1978 for work done under the supervision of Dr. Otto
Vogl.
After a brief stay with Dr. Takeo Saegusa at Kyoto University, Tirrell accepted an assistant professorship
in the Department of Chemistry at Carnegie-Mellon University in the fall of 1978. Tirrell returned to
Amherst in 1984 and served as Director of the Materials Research Laboratory at the University of
Massachusetts before moving to Caltech in 1998. He served as chairman of the Division of Chemistry
and Chemical Engineering at Caltech from 1999 until 2009, and assumed the directorship of the
Beckman Institute in 2012.
Tirrell’s research interests lie in macromolecular chemistry and in the use of non-canonical amino acids
to engineer and probe protein behavior. His contributions to these fields have been recognized by his
election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and to all three branches (Sciences, Engineering
and Medicine) of the U.S. National Academies, one of only 20 fellows so honored.
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