Cynthia J. Burrows

University of Utah


Primary Section: 14, Chemistry
Membership Type:
Member (elected 2014)

Biosketch

Dr. Cynthia J. Burrows, Ph.D., is the Thatcher Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.  Her early training was in physical organic chemistry with Prof. Stan Cristol at the University of Colorado (B. A. 1975) and Prof. Barry Carpenter at Cornell University (Ph.D., 1982), followed by a NSF-CNRS postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Prof. Jean-Marie Lehn, Université Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg (1981-83).  She was on the faculty at Stony Brook University, before returning to the West in 1995.  Her research focuses on nucleic acid chemistry, particularly base modifications in DNA and RNA.  Prof. Burrows has served in several editorial roles and is currently Editor-in-Chief of Accounts of Chemical Research.  Her research was recognized with the ACS Utah Award, ACS Cope Scholar Award, and the University of Utah’s Distinguished Creative and Scholarly Research Award.  She is also the 2018 recipient of the James Flack Norris Award in Physical Organic Chemistry and of the Gibbs Medal, both from the ACS.  She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009 and elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2014.  She is the 2019 recipient of the Rosenblatt Prize for distinguished service at the University of Utah. 

Research Interests

Nucleic acid chemistry, especially base modifications important in epigenetics and epitranscriptomics; oxidative stress, DNA damage, DNA repair and gene expression; DNA and RNA sequencing for modifications including nanopore technologies; pseudouridine in viral RNA; G-quadruplexes and i-motif structures and their functions.

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