alumni-story

T. Mitchell Aide

April 28, 2021

T. Mitchell Aide

Distinguished Alumnus, Biology

Following his graduation with a bachelor’s from University of Texas - San Antonio, California native T. Mitchell (Mitch) Aide ended up in Utah … but via Panama. It was in Central America where he first met School of Biological Sciences (SBS) professors Lissy Coley and Tom Kursar doing tropical forest research. Aide would eventually become Coley’s first graduate student at the University of Utah. Lissy and Tom were “different than some other advisors,” says Aide. “They showed how high-quality research did not have to exclude enjoying life.”

The relationship proved to be a productive one. Aide graduated from U with a PhD in 1989 and continued in his career as a researcher and professor. Recently he was presented the School of Biological Sciences 2021 Distinguished Alumni Award.

During his sojourn at the U (1982-1990) Aide says that the cohort of professors there “created an environment of high-quality research and education

Stand-up guy on Stand up paddleboard (SUP)

without being aggressively competitive.” He remembers the personal and financial support of the department staff when a house he lived in with other graduate students burned down. His graduate work included a single-authored publication in Nature in 1988, demonstrating that the synchrony of production of young leaves for a community of tropical trees may have evolved as an adaptation to reduce herbivory by insects.

Since then he has published more than 140 peer-reviewed articles. And, after Smithsonian and Fulbright postdoctoral fellowships in Panama and Colombia, respectively, he took a position at the University of Puerto Rico - Río Piedras in 1992, where he is now a full professor.

His research interests cover a diversity of topics related to tropical forest ecology, including plant/animal interactions, forest dynamics, population dynamics, restoration ecology, land change, community ecology, conservation, ecological informatics, and ecoacoustics. Presently, his research focuses on land-use change and its implication for biodiversity conservation.

“In addition to Mitch’s own scientific contributions,” wrote Coley in the nomination letter for the alumni award, Aide “has mentored an enormous number of students, most from Latin America. These include 18 Master’s students, 11 PhD students, over 50 undergraduates and eight postdoctoral fellows. His mentorship of the next generation of scientists has had profound impacts on education and conservation in Latin America.”

Aide has also started a company to monitor biodiversity. “This was motivated by his concern for the alarming loss of species in nature,” says Coley, before explaining that her former student’s innovation was to deploy many low-cost acoustic recorders in nature and then analyze the sounds to quantify changes in the community or to track individual species of interest.

“His company developed the sophisticated but user-friendly Automated Remote Biodiversity Monitoring Network (ARBIMON) platform so researchers can analyze these recordings for their own research,” continues Coley. “His goal is to have permanent acoustic biodiversity monitoring stations in thousands of sites throughout the world, including eco-tourism sites, research stations, protected areas, and threatened areas.”

A consummate researcher, academic and now founder of a company, Aide enjoys water sports, including surfing and snorkeling. After more than 40 years publishing on tropical ecology and conservation, and “seeing our poor progress in conserving tropical biodiversity,” he says with some rue, “I will try a different approach—write a novel.”

During this time of pandemic, personal and societal reflection is the order of the day. Aide expects that there will be substantial changes to higher education. Even so, he advises today’s students to “identify what you are good at and what you enjoy and dedicate 110%” to it.

As a 2021 SBS distinguished alumnus, Mitch Aide is an excellent model for dedication and hard work—even when pivoting late in an esteemed career towards fiction writing to further the cause of and raising consciousness about the critical need for conservation.

 
by David Pace
 

Ace Madsen

April 5, 2021

Ace Madsen, MD

The Uinta Basin in the northeast corner of Utah can seem like a ways “out there” near the border of Colorado and one of the most famous dinosaur quarries in the world. In fact as of last month, says  Vernal-based Ace Arthur C. Madsen, BS’79, “it took six months for the pandemic to reach my corner of the state. Now I have two to three patients a week developing Covid-19 or succumbing to it. I believe the mask and hand sanitizer culture is here to stay.”

It’s a sobering reality for a rural and oil-industry region of the state next to some of the most beautiful and remote landscapes in the state, including Flaming Gorge and the Green River drainage as it flows toward its confluence with the Colorado to the south near Moab. But it is home for Dr. Madsen who has raised his family there and is now grandfather to a whopping fifteen grandchildren.

The University of Utah was the place for Madsen to chase his dream of becoming a doctor. Today he is in private practice in internal medicine. As an undergraduate he recalls Richard Van Norman who taught Botany as one of his favorite professors.“He was friendly, liked to spend one-on-one time with his students and seemed to really care about what we thought and our future plans.”

“My background in basic biological science, biochemistry and molecular biology provided me with a solid background and was invaluable to me in my research activities and medical school.” The Department of Biology, now the School of Biological Sciences, was a bit of a boot camp for him and other pre-med students.

“I am very grateful for the no nonsense approach” of many mentors, he says, including the late Gordon Lark, the late James L. Lords, and emeritus professors William R. Gray and Bob Vickery. Once Madsen had graduated in biology, the rigors of his training continued with the late Dr. Frank Moody and as a research assistant at the U’s Medical School in the departments of Pediatric Neurology with Drs. PF Bray and JT Wu as well as the Department of Surgery with Dr. Layton F. Rikkers, now an emeritus professor of surgery at the University of Wisconsin.

In 1981 Madsen graduated with his MD, receiving the Outstanding Research Award. During that time he secured eight publications and 10 abstracts, predominantly on oncofetal antigens such as carcino embryonic antigen (CEA) and alpha-fetoprotein (AFP). Following his graduation from the U Medical School he completed his residency in 1984 in Internal Medicine at Duke University.

Madsen isn’t the only alumnus in his family from the University of Utah. His wife Zoe graduated in mathematics with a minor in chemistry in 1975, and his son Adam earned his BS in biology in 2006 before following his father’s footsteps to medical school. While at the U, Adam, who quarterbacked for the Utes, was named Scholar-Athlete in the Mountain West Athletic Conference in 2004 and was part of the undefeated and Nationally-ranked Tostito’s Fiesta Bowl Champions football team in 2005.

Father (right, in photo above) and son both practice in Vernal.

In addition to his medical practice and his grandfathering, Madsen works in wood and stained glass as hobbies. When asked what advice he would give to current students in the School of Biological Sciences, he is succinct and quick to number what he thinks future graduates from the U should do. 1. “Study hard. It is difficult to get anywhere without good grades. 2. Get involved with research. 3. Get married--best move I made in life.”

 

By David Pace

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Ed Groenhout

April 2, 2021

ED groenhout

Ed Groenhout, BS’85 in Biology, has developed a deep love for travel and for the people of the world. He and his family have visited five continents and dozens of countries, and they plan to visit Australia and China soon, to complete a trip to all seven continents. 

That same budding spirit of adventure led Groenhout to the University of Utah in 1980 to begin his undergraduate education.

“I grew up in a small town in Montana (Bozeman, Pop. 20,000 in 1980) and wanted to experience something different and more diverse,” says Groenhout. “We had family who lived in Salt Lake City at the time, so my mother felt comfortable sending me far from home.” 

It was a pivotal moment in his life. 

Groenhout embraced the opportunity. When he arrived on campus, as an out-of-state student, he lived in the dorms including two years in Van Cott Hall and two years in Austin Hall. (The three original dormitories – Van Cott Hall, Austin Hall, and Ballif Hall – were constructed in the late 1960s and could accommodate 1,200 students.)

“Many of my best University memories revolve around dorm life, especially the intramural sports. I also worked for the U’s National Championship Women’s Gymnastics team in the early 1980s. We moved all the equipment from their practice facility to the Huntsman Center for competitions and then back again,” says Groenhout.

“My education at the U, especially in Biology, started everything for me,” says Groenhout. “It ignited a passion for learning that continues to this day. I became very interested in molecular biology and that interest translated into my first job working in a lab at the U.” 

“I must also mention Dr. David Stillman in the Molecular Biology department at the University’s School of Medicine. He was a great mentor to me and helped me tremendously, and I never would have worked in a lab in New Mexico if he hadn’t taught me everything I knew,” says Groenhout. 

At the U, Groenhout’s favorite teacher was biology professor John Roth. “Roth had a significant impact on my education. I learned so much in his classes and also got hands-on experience performing his simple but elegant experiments with bacteria and mutations,” says Groenhout. 

Upon graduation in 1985, with his Bachelor’s degree, Groenhout experienced another pivotal moment in his life. He was told that he would never get into medical school. 

“That was all the motivation I needed, and I have since had an amazing career in medicine,” says Groenhout.  “In fact, my career has included bench research, academic medicine, the Veteran’s Administration, private practice in a rural location caring for predominantly Medicare and Medicaid patients, and now Public Health.”

To get his medical degree, he worked tirelessly and was admitted to the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. He conducted research in Dr. Richard Dorn’s endocrinology lab for four years and his work resulted in a publication in the journal Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology. He was also elected to Alpha Omega Alpha, the medical school honor society. He earned an M.D. degree in 1992. 

Groenhout then completed his medical residency and internship at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, from 1992 to 1995, and worked as a clinical instructor on the faculty of the University of Michigan for two additional years.

“But I always wanted to get back West, to the open spaces and rugged beauty,” says Groenhout. So, in 1997, he accepted a position as an Assistant Professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, School of Medicine. He worked at UNLV for seven years and was promoted to program director of the Internal Medicine Residency Program there. 

Groenhout met his wife, Yvonne, an ICU nurse, at UNLV. “We met at the Med Center and bonded over our mutual love of Diet Coke!” They were married in 2003. 

That same year, Groenhout began his private medical practice at the Grants Pass Clinic in Grants Pass, Oregon. He specialized in primary care Internal Medicine there until 2020, when he and his family relocated to Salem, Oregon to work with the Indian Health Services in the Chemawa Clinic. 

It was another pivotal moment in his life. 

“My wife Yvonne and I had talked for years about the next step in my career and we both wanted to continue to give back to underserved populations in the U.S.,” says Groenhout.   “Having grown up in Montana I was aware of the healthcare disparities in Native areas of the U.S. and the Covid-19 pandemic only amplified those disparities.”

The Chemawa clinic, located about 40 miles south of Portland, is unique because it is one of only four clinics in the U.S. not associated with a Native American Reservation and so Groenhout can provide care to a wider spectrum of patients. Chemawa is also a federally-assisted clinic so medical providers have access to greater resources than many smaller tribal clinics. In fact, the Chemawa clinic serves tribal members from over 100 tribes.

“I see about 50 patients each week from predominantly Oregon and Washington states,” says Groenhout. “There is a high demand for quality medical care in these small communities like Chemawa and Salem where indigenous populations have unique medical needs.”

Back: Ed, Yvonne. Front: Kaylee, Sara

“As a front-line medical provider, I can say Covid-19 has had an immeasurable impact on my professional life but I am confident that we will emerge stronger and better equipped as a result. It has changed healthcare delivery and opened up new and more creative avenues for interacting with patients,” says Groenhout. 

“I hope the pandemic improves our trust in science and ignites an interest in science and healthcare in our youth.”

“I’d also like to recognize my wife, Yvonne, who – during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic – volunteered her ICU nursing skills and traveled to Chicago and the Virgin Islands for two separate two-week shifts. From this experience, she now plans to continue volunteer work both nationally and internationally,” says Groenhout. 

In their continuing travels, Groenhout and his family visit Utah on a regular basis, especially for recreation in Bryce National Park and Zion National Park.

To current students, Groenhout says, “Things may seem bleak right now, but we will get through this and life will get better and back to normal. Keep focused and determined and don’t let anything stop you!”

Are you a Science Alumni? Connect with us today!

Adam Madsen

March 12, 2021

Adam Madsen

Adam Madsen, BA’06 in Biology, was the quintessential student-athlete.

To be a student-athlete requires extraordinary talent on the field and in the classroom. This is particularly true with science degrees due to the rigorous curriculum.

Madsen grew up in the Uinta Basin area, living in both Roosevelt and Vernal, two small farming towns in northeastern Utah.

He graduated Valedictorian from Uintah High School, in Vernal, and excelled not just in academics but also in athletics. He was named Academic All-State in football, baseball, and basketball. In baseball, he was named Utah 3A State MVP, Region X MVP, and USA TODAY– Honorable Mention All-American. In football, he made All-State as quarterback, Region X MVP, National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame Scholar-Athlete Award, and was USA TODAY– Honorable Mention All-American.

After high school, Madsen went to Dixie State University in St. George with athletic scholarships to play football and baseball. At Dixie State he was named NJCAA Football Distinguished Academic All-American, team captain, two-time Dixie Rotary Bowl Champion, and three-time Western States Football League Conference Champion.

He earned an Associate of Science degree at Dixie, then transferred to the University of Utah to play quarterback for coach Urban Meyer and the Utah Utes. At Utah, he was named Scholar-Athlete in the Mountain West Athletic Conference in 2004 and was part of the undefeated and Nationally-ranked Tostito’s Fiesta Bowl Champions football team in 2005.

“I was a Pre-Med student at the time and in considering options, Utah was the best place to further my medical career pursuit and play football,” says Madsen. “The U had a strong reputation in my family, having grown up in Utah and having my mother and father both graduate from the College of Science in the 1970s,” says Madsen.

Left to right, Ty 10; Ally 7; Matt 5; Mya 12; and wife Marci

(Madsen’s mother, Zoe Madsen, earned a B.S. degree in mathematics and a minor in chemistry in 1975, and his father, Arthur Ace Madsen, completed a B.S. degree in Biology in 1976.)

“Being a student-athlete had several challenges. Football was basically a full-time job as far as hours per week it consumed,” says Madsen. “Weekends were mostly focused on football time as well. It wasn’t easy to juggle classes and make ends meet with football’s schedule.”

For Madsen to enroll in some upper-division biochemistry classes, he had to get special permission from team coaches, including Urban Meyer, since he would miss parts of team meetings during the week.

“On a typical day, I would have classes in the morning then have football practice from about 1 o’clock to 7 o’clock, then go directly to the Marriott library where I would stay until 11 o’clock or midnight,” says Madsen. “However, I would not trade my experience of playing football for anything! I learned so many valuable life lessons and made so many life friendships with players and coaches.”

At the U, Madsen’s favorite professor was Charles “Chuck” Grissom, a chemistry teacher who taught many of the upper-division biochemistry classes. “Grissom was available to discuss and answer questions, even with huge class sizes. Also, he showed he cared about students on an individual level,” says Madsen.

“I remember the Monday in class just after our Utah football team got the Fiesta Bowl bid, he brought bags of Tostito’s chips and let me help throw them out to the class. This was a small and simple thing but helped keep us engaged in his teaching.”

After graduating from the U, Madsen attended medical school at Des Moines University College of Osteopathic Medicine, in Iowa, and completed an Orthopedic Surgery Internship and Residency at Ohio University Doctors Hospital, in Columbus, Ohio.

Today, Madsen is an orthopedic surgeon in his hometown, Vernal, Utah. He practices general orthopedics including diagnosing and treating operative and non-operative injuries. He specializes in fractures, arthritis, partial knee replacement, sports medicine, ACL and ligament reconstruction, arthroscopic surgery, and foot and ankle conditions.

“My primary goal is to provide excellent orthopedic patient care to the people of this small-town community.” says Madsen.

His patients often include young student-athletes – much like himself at that age – who are striving to excel in the classroom and on the field.

Madsen and his wife, Marci, have four children: Mya, 12; Ty, 10; Ally, 7; and Matt, 5.

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Cameron Soelberg

March 11, 2021


Cameron Soelberg

Cameron Soelberg, HBS’00

Honors science graduate, Cameron Soelberg, HBS’00, forged an adventurous—and rigorous—path as a student at the U. He continues to travel on a pioneering trail to this day.

Soelberg recently climbed to the summit of the highest point in Utah—Kings Peak at 13,528 feet—and has also lived and worked in Colorado, Illinois, New Hampshire, and New York.

“I think my personal history is a good example that your education and career don't need to necessarily move in a straight line from point A to point B, because your goals might change as you gain experience and that could launch you on a completely new path from what you had in mind originally,” said Soelberg.

When Soelberg first enrolled at the U in 1994, his intention was to pursue a Ph.D. and become a college professor.

After he completed his honors degrees in mathematics and physics, he stayed on campus to complete a Master’s Degree in Mathematics. While in graduate school, he was supported with a teaching assistantship in the Math Department and taught one or two courses each semester.

"After finishing the Master’s Degree, I felt like I needed some time away from school and decided to pursue an opportunity with a startup company in Colorado Springs. There I was involved in prototyping projects for the U.S. Special Forces, which was fascinating work,” said Soelberg.

In 2006, Soelberg took a job as a systems engineer with Lockheed Martin in Salt Lake City, developing biometric tagging and identification algorithms. “I enjoyed engineering and appreciated the quick learning curve and exposure to cutting-edge technology, but I wanted to broaden my horizons in the direction of business management, so after a year at Lockheed, I chose to leave Utah again to pursue an MBA at Dartmouth College,” he said.

While at Dartmouth, Soelberg became interested in investment banking. He completed an internship with Deutsche Bank in New York in the summer of 2008, between his first and second years of business school.

“The timing couldn’t have been worse as that was the start of the global financial crisis but witnessing it firsthand was an invaluable experience, and I was fortunate to receive a full-time offer to join the firm in Chicago after graduation,” said Soelberg. (He earned an MBA at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in 2009.)

The first few years following the financial crisis were tough for investment banking, as regulatory changes impacted the industry, but Soelberg worked hard and was promoted to vice president and then to director and managing director. He spent a total of nine years at Deutsche Bank. In 2018, he joined the Global Industries Group at UBS Investment Bank and now splits his time between Chicago and Salt Lake City.

“My current position involves a lot of numbers and a keen understanding of the capital markets and valuation,” said Soelberg. “It’s not sophisticated or complex in the way that algebraic topology or particle physics may be, but it does require critical thinking and a high degree of accuracy. The most important contribution my University of Utah education has made is the rigorous way I was taught to analyze and attack problems. The scientific method (and mathematical proof, similarly) is a disciplined framework for progressing from a hypothesis or question to a well-reasoned and logical conclusion. I use this every day in my job, and I’m grateful for how well my learning at the U prepared me to succeed.”

Soelberg recalls many people and experiences from his undergraduate years on campus.

“Lab work in chemistry and physics especially stands out, mostly because I was so impatient that I could never do the experiments quite right, but I had good lab partners who kept me on track,” he said.

“In the Math Department, Jerry Davey really had an impact on me as a student. I took a couple of undergraduate courses from him and helped with an accelerated calculus series one summer as a TA,” said Soelberg. “He was a kind person and a great teacher. He also lived an interesting life that spanned multiple dimensions in mathematics, the military, engineering, and private industry. I’ve always thought of his career path as a role model for my own.”

“Within the Physics Department, I’d be remiss if I didn’t recognize Charlie Jui for all that he taught me in the pre-professional physics program as a freshman. I wasn’t always the most present or attentive student, but his love of physics and wry sense of humor has stuck with me, and I still enjoy seeing him on campus,” said Soelberg.

Soelberg also remembers studying in the Fletcher building (Physics) and the Cowles building (Math) after it was renovated. He was active in many organizations on campus, including a fraternity, and he held offices in student government and the Alumni Association.

“I think there are a couple of lessons I’ve kept in mind that could prove useful for current students. The first is that there will always be challenges, obstacles, and setbacks to overcome, no matter how or when you start out in life. Adversity creates opportunity. Being adaptable is one of the most important keys to success (and happiness),” said Soelberg.

“Second, I would say that no matter how difficult things may become, you are not alone in the struggle. There are many other people, both historically and in different parts of society today, who have faced grave difficulties and found ways to rise above their circumstances. Take comfort and inspiration in that realization and use it as a model for yourself,” he said.

Soelberg is already planning his next adventure—to run the Chicago marathon. “There’s always another mountain to climb,” said Soelberg. “Life’s challenges, and rewards, can be found anew each day.”

A solid educational foundation in mathematics and physics, and the Honors College, is an exceptional “base camp” from which to operate.

Connor, Annabelle, Hayden, Charlotte, Cameron, and partner, Amanda.

Soelberg has four children: Hayden (19), Annabelle (16), Connor (13), and Charlotte (10). Hayden is a freshman at the U, studying computer science. He’s enrolled in the Honors College and lives on campus at Kahlert Village.

 

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Diana Hulboy

March 3, 2021

Diana Hulboy

 

Diana Hulboy, BS’89, has lived science from the outside in … and back. The Utah native graduated from the University of Utah in biology with a minor in chemistry before tackling graduate school, a post-doctoral fellowship and a career in the biotech industry, most recently as Director of Technical Business Development at MED Chem 101, a research reagents manufacturer.

But it was when she came down with cancer herself that the arc of her life seemed to come full circle. It has been a journey not unlike the bicycle races and rides she participates in—the inner/outer cyclical game that’s not actually a game, but life itself.

Fresh out of Alta High School in Sandy, Hulboy was offered not one but two scholarships from the UofU. As an undergraduate, she recalls a large group of friends hiking with her to the top Mt. Olympus, then running down and not being able to walk the following day. During her freshman year in the dorms she hung out with new friends (rather than studying) and remembers the Challenger space shuttle exploding as they all gathered in the commons area in shock.

Hulboy studied under Professor Joe Dickinson, dissecting transgenic Drosophila melanogaster larvae and adults to examine aldehyde oxidase activity. Later she was employed as a technician in the lab of Ryk Ward where she participated in DNA extraction and RFLP analysis of blood from patients with familial hypercholesterolemia and rheumatoid arthritis.

Armed with her degree in biology and a minor in chemistry, Hulboy headed off to graduate school at the University of Texas Health Science Center, MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston where she continued her studies in molecular biology between 1989 and 1995 in the lab of Guillermina Lozano.

How SBS alumni make the transition from academia to industry is often a study in serendipity. Such was the class with Hulboy. Her research as a post doc at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee was elevated further in her studies of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) expression and activity in normal and tumor model systems, and it was in her last year there, she says, that she attended the annual conference of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

“In the exhibit hall I chatted with the co-owner of a small company, BIOMOL Research Labs, that manufactured assay kits and reagents for researchers,” she recalls. “They were looking for a protease expert to round out their product line, so my postdoctoral work with MMPs was a good fit.”

In 2000 Hulboy joined BIOMOL, located outside of Philadelphia. Rob Zipkin, Ph.D., a medicinal chemist and the company’s founder, became her mentor for working in biotech. “It was my dream job for a decade,” she admits. During that time, BIOMOL expanded to a multimillion-dollar company that was sold to Enzo Life Sciences.

Eventually Hulboy would rejoin Zipkin at his new company Med Chem 101, LLC. Similar to BIOMOL’s ethos, she explains, “we follow the scientific literature to identify key reagents that would be useful for researchers.” In the case of Med Chem 101, the reagents are bioactive small molecule chemicals, peptides, and lipids that act as inhibitors, agonists, etc. “Many of them are drugs, but we sell them for research use only.”

It turns out that researchers use these compounds as tools to tease apart the signaling pathway they are studying. “What happens when they block one step of the pathway with an inhibitor?” Hulboy asks rhetorically. “Or what happens when they activate another step? This tells them about the components of each pathway, and how they are all related to each other. If only I’d known about these types of reagents during my academic research days! They would have made my projects much better.”

This work constituted a time in her life when the biology of the body was theoretical and lab-based, filled with hours and hours at the bench and then writing up results in academic journals eventually resulting in her PhD. But while science had always been a key part of her life and personality, it remained, appropriately, academic … until it wasn’t.

And so it goes with the applications of basic science in the “real world” and in health sciences in particular.

And so it goes, sometimes, when the researcher becomes the subject matter of that research. After being diagnosed with stage II/III breast cancer in June 2017, Hulboy underwent six months of chemotherapy, multiple surgeries including mastectomy, and two months of radiation therapy. She started writing a blog about her experiences:

My PhD and postdoctoral work (11 years) was all about cancer, and one of

my projects was on breast cancer (in mice). Although I know the subject of

cancer well, it's from a cellular and molecular perspective, not clinical, so

I've much to learn. It's both good and bad to have some knowledge: good

because the more I understand what's going on, but better I feel, even if

it's bad news; bad because I can go down rabbit holes of thought that I

otherwise wouldn't.

September 2017 at the top of Stickle Ghyll in England's Lake District in the midst of chemo and after a grueling but exhilarating hike.

 As with science, cycling has shaped who Hulboy is. And now dealing with COVID-19, cycling and other exercise have proven even more important. To avoid crowds, she has been riding and walking in a nearby historical cemetery that doubles as an arboretum, “and this in turn has inspired me to take up nature photography. Staying in touch with my friends through the sport app Strava has been wonderful.”

“My life partner, Liz Feeney, was amazing,” says Hulboy, returning to the subject of her recovery from cancer, “and being healthy (thanks to cycling), an optimist, and a scientist got me through it. It was terrifying, but the more I understood what was going on, the better I felt, so I learned about everything that was going on, and being in clinical trials and research studies throughout my treatment also helped."

Even as the subject of cancer research, Hulboy never lost her fascination with the scientific method and the ethic of empirical and peer-reviewed research. She says she was fortunate to be part of an I-SPY2 multi-institutional clinical trial which comprised three study 'arms': standard chemotherapy; standard chemotherapy plus Keytruda; and standard chemotherapy plus a PARP inhibitor, talazoparib. As part of that trial she was eligible for more frequent scans and bloodwork, “which was good because it meant more frequent analysis in case something went sideways.”

It’s been almost three years since Hulboy’s intense part of cancer treatment was completed. Since then she has been on tamoxifen, which interferes with the binding of estrogen to its receptors, the latter of which are abundant on her cancer cells. “I am healing all the time, though I do have some permanent side effects that limit my ability to exercise intensely, at least for now. I am determined to overcome them, and in the meantime, I can at least still ride my bike!”

Rigorous training, begun at the School of Biological Sciences, and personal adversity through her bout with cancer have given Diana Hulboy perspective as well as strength and optimism. And she is quick to share that optimism and perspective with current students at the U who may be struggling through this unprecedented time of pandemic: “Don't give up on going to the U--it is so much more than 'just' an education.”

 
by David Pace
 

Thomas Stucky

March 1, 2021

Thomas Stucky

On Feb. 18, the world held its breath as NASA’s multibillion-dollar Perseverance Rover landed successfully on Mars to look for signs of life—and to prepare for future human explorers. The robotic rover traveled 300 million miles in six months, a massive effort that all came down to “seven minutes of terror,” named for the hair-raising descent that happens too quickly for radio signals to transmit from Mars to mission control—in other words, the rover is on its own. The car-sized craft crashed through the Martian atmosphere at 1,000 mph enduring temperatures as high as 3,800°F. Its heat shield dropped, plunging the rover into a free fall before a “sky crane” lowered Perseverance into the 28-mile-wide Jezero Crater on Mars (illustration shown in the header image).

U alum Thomas Stucky (B.S. ’15) was one of the millions of people glued to NASA’s live stream of the harrowing landing. Stucky is a KBRWyle engineer at NASA’s Ames Research Center where he wrote software for robotic drill arms similar to the ones on Perseverance, then tested them on extreme Earth locations that resemble the Martian landscape. Now, Stucky works on a computer simulation of the landscape of Europa, a moon of Jupiter, that acts as a testbed for Europa lander autonomy. He sat down with @theU to talk about Perseverance Rover, NASA’s most ambitious mission in decades.

What was going through your mind as you watched Perseverance Rover’s entry into Mars?

Rendering of Perseverance Rover's Mars landing.

What went through my mind was my experience of the last time a rover landed on Mars: the Curiosity Rover in 2012. I was here at the University of Utah as an undergraduate, volunteering at a public watch party in the College of Science. I remember the dead silence that fell over an entire auditorium of people in wait of the heartbeat signal that indicated a safe landing. A silence that was punctuated with a ruckus of celebration moments later when mission control received the signal and confirmed Curiosity was safely on the ground. To see a room full of strangers all uniting and cheering for the accomplishments of a robotic explorer, and therefore the accomplishments of those who worked on it, was moving. It opened my eyes to the impact that space exploration can have on everyone.

Nearly a decade later, and several years of firsthand NASA experience under my belt, I watched this familiar sequence of events, but now with a new appreciation for the blood, sweat and tears that thousands of individuals from all around the globe had to contribute to make a mission like Perseverance a reality. Blood, sweat and tears that could all go poof at the slightest miscalculation.

What is Perseverance Rover’s mission on Mars?

Perseverance’s primary mission is to search for signs of ancient life that may once have thrived on a warmer Mars billions of years in the past. This is why it’s landing in the Jezero Crater at the site of an ancient river delta, which scientists think may have once flowed with liquid water. Due to the harsh radiation environment on the surface, it is unlikely that we’ll find current life without digging more than a meter underground. This ancient river delta may have deposited and preserved biosignatures in the form of organic molecules that we know are synthesized by life here on Earth. The landing site is also home to a number of steep cliffs, sand dunes, and boulder fields that will teach us more about Mars’ geological past. In astrobiology, biosignatures alone are not enough to prove life existed—the geological context that they are found in is needed to make conclusive statements about what sort of life may have once thrived there. For that reason, Perseverance is also equipped with a suite of scientific instruments to learn about Mars’ past climate and geologic history.

As if searching for ancients traces of Martian life and characterizing the geologic history of a planet wasn’t enough, Perseverance has a third objective as well; to conduct studies that will prepare for human exploration of Mars. There is an experiment on board that sounds right out of the movie, “The Martian.” It’s called MOXIE, or Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment. It’s a device that absorbs carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere and synthesizes it into oxygen, which is a crucial technology for future Mars explorers to produce both breathable air and rocket fuel. Perseverance also carries the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer to characterize Mars weather and gain a better understanding of the dangers that will face future human and robotic explorers alike.

The rover will drill into Mars’ surface to collect and store soil and rock samples. What can these tell us about life on Mars?

Lots of things! Rocks contain within them the chemical history of a world. They hold the key to understanding Mars’ past. Perseverance is equipped with a suite of instruments that will measure both the organic and geological chemical makeup of Mars rocks and their morphologies to answer questions like: “How warm was Mars?” “How wet was Mars?”; “How briny were its ancient rivers?” and the big one, “Did Mars’ ever harbor life?”

Inside NASA's Mission Control at in Southern California.

The instrument that may shed the most light on the question of life on Mars, is SHERLOC, or Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals. SHERLOC is designed to tell us what minerals and organic molecules are present in a drilled sample of rock. Not all organic molecules are considered biosignatures, but SHERLOC is able to show us the distribution of different molecules within a sample. For instance, a high concentration of organics in a particular region of a sample might suggest that an ancient microbial community once thrived there. Further analysis will have to be done to confirm definitively if SHERLOC detects biosignatures, which is why Perseverance’s robotic arm will be capable of caching promising samples for retrieval by another NASA mission down the line. These candidate samples that Perseverance will collect and store on board may very well contain conclusive evidence of life on Mars, but we will still have to wait and find out.

You develop software for robotic drills and test those drilling capabilities on Mars-like surfaces here on Earth. What are some challenges in remote drilling on another planet?

Drilling is all about paying attention to how the material affects the drill and adjusting accordingly. If you’ve ever used a hand drill on a piece of lumber, you know that you could encounter a change in the wood grain that jams the drill bit. If you get your drill bit stuck in a piece of wood here on Earth, no big deal. Just walk to the local hardware store and buy another, or pry it out of the wood. If the drill bit attached to your rover gets stuck while on Mars, then the whole mission is a bust.

The drill assembly on the end of Perseverance’s robotic arm holds nine drill bits, and among them is a coring bit that can extract half-inch diameter cylinders of Martian rock up to 2.4 inches deep. By acquiring a sample at this depth, Perseverance will be able to assess it for biosignatures of extinct life; however, future missions might need to dig even deeper into Mars in order to find life that may presently thrive meters under the surface protected from harmful radiation. The difficulty of drilling exponentially increases with drilling depth, which means tackling these problems is crucial to finding extant life on Mars.

How does testing technology on Earth help identify and address these issues?

It’s important that the rover’s own systems are able to monitor the drilling telemetry and make decisions in real-time on its own. A human operator on Earth could control the drill through sensors that read the motor torque and weight, but Mars is so far away that even light-speed communication is too slow for real-time control. Any drill telemetry that the operator sees are already 20 minutes old, and any fault they attempt to avoid has likely already caused damage to the system or resulted in a stuck bit. A stuck bit… on another planet… with no hardware stores… it’s every DIYers worst nightmare.

That is what my work at NASA has been about. I worked on a 1-meter-long robotic drill, which we tested on a variety of rocks at locales all around the globe that have landscapes similar to Mars. I learn about all the possible ways that a drill can fail, and how to teach the rover to recover any drill failure by using only the feedback and controls that a robotic explorer would have access to.

How did your time at the U influence your career path?

I started my journey at the U only being sure that I wanted to study physics. By the end of my undergraduate career, thanks largely in part to the wonderful faculty in the Department of Physics & Astronomy, what I gained was a newfound passion for space research. When I was a student, I volunteered at the Wednesday night star parties held at the South Physics Observatory on the roof of the physics building. I saw how stargazing changes a person’s perception of their world and their place inside of it. Sure it may make us feel small in size, but that’s important in a way. Like we have something to offer this great big universe: an understanding of itself. Although we all collectively inhabit a pale blue dot, our true, long-lasting imprint will not be in how far we expand or how tall we build, it will be in the lessons, both scientific and cultural, that we learn along the way.

 
by Lisa Potter first published in @THEU
 

Gameil Fouad

February 23, 2021

Gameil Fouad

 

As an undergraduate student at the U, Gameil Fouad, BS’93, had some big decisions to make.

Having grown up in Layton, Utah, Fouad spent much of his time exploring the foothills and canyons of northern Utah.

“I honestly wanted to pursue a career in ecology or environmental science. I’d envisioned a life of working outdoors, perhaps for the Forest Service or as a field scientist somewhere in the tropics,” says Fouad. “I figured the pursuit of a degree in Biology was the right place to start.”

During his first quarter at the U, Fouad took a class from Dr. William “Bill” Gray where he got his first taste of the fascinating world of molecular biology. Being at the U also provided him the opportunity to work on campus in the University Hospital during his undergraduate years.

While working on campus, Fouad learned practical laboratory bench work, including cell cultures and using antibodies to visualize structures in frozen tissue samples. He also utilized ultracentrifugation with glucose gradients to separate cell types.

“All of a sudden, the lab became more interesting than I could have imagined. I’ve not lost my love of being outside, but now I enjoy thinking about those parts of the natural world we can’t as easily see and touch,” says Fouad.

Later in his student career, Fouad enrolled in a biochemistry class taught by Distinguished Biology Professor Toto Olivera. “It was a bit of a revelation to go check out the venomous sea snails!” remembers Fouad.

“It was also the first time I got a chance to see a professor as a fun-loving, approachable and generous person and not merely a serious ‘pillar of knowledge’ at the front of an auditorium,” says Fouad. “Over time, I came to understand that the scientific community is filled with all these interesting and decent people with whom I shared much in common and loved spending time.”

Fouad’s best advice to current students is to take advantage of all U Biology, and the entire University, has to offer.

For example, he remembers going to the Student Services Building in the early 1990s (pre-Internet) and looking at the available student jobs, which at the time were typed on handwritten 3x5 note cards posted all over bulletin boards.

“I applied for anything I could find that was even remotely STEM related. It wasn’t by any grand plan – I just knew I wanted to work in the sciences and felt the sooner I got started, the better,” says Fouad.

“Any one of these big decisions can change the trajectory of one’s life. In my case, getting that first job in a lab and pivoting from ecology to molecular biology no doubt changed my path dramatically.”

“I’ve heard it said that it’s really only a handful of big decisions – maybe a couple dozen or so – that matter,” says Fouad.

After graduating in 1993, Fouad spent several years working at the Eccles Institute of Human Genetics in the lab of Dr. Louis Ptacek (now at University of California, San Francisco), studying disease causing mutations in ion channels. Later, he attended graduate school at Oregon Health and Sciences University in Portland where he worked in the lab of Dr. Cheryl Maslen studying matrix proteins involved in heart development. He received his doctorate degree in 2002.

“I think people generally regard science as an exclusively ‘left brain’ exercise, focused on protocols and methods with precision and certainty. In reality, I think it’s much more of a ‘right brain’ undertaking, using a body of knowledge and fundamental principles to form new ideas, then testing them, modifying them and expanding upon them. This is truly a creative process,” says Fouad.

Today, Fouad is president of Biotron Laboratories, Inc., a local company his parents founded in 1979. (His father, Dr. M. Taher Fouad, was a highly trained scientist and researcher.) In his job, Fouad researches mineral nutrition from a unique industry perspective, bringing new ideas to bear on minerals. Along with a team of experts, Fouad develops mineral products that are highly compatible with human physiology on a molecular level. The “Biotron Process” has achieved widespread recognition as a unique and scientifically valid technique that utilizes the complete amino acid profile derived from enzymatic treatment of isolated vegetable proteins.

Fouad is married to Gina Barberi, who is a well-known radio personality on X96. They met on campus, when they both were students and were married in 2005. They have three children: Aiden, who is in Navy training to become a medical corpsman, and Sofia, and Ramzi.

“If I hadn’t been eager to take advantage of what was available at the U, things might have gone very differently!” says Fouad. “I’m simply glad it’s gone the way it has.”

 
by James DeGooyer
 

Lee Roberts

February 2, 2021

 

LEE K. ROberts

Last year the College of Science celebrated its 50-year anniversary. When the College was formed, in 1970, Lee K. Roberts, BS’72, had nearly completed his bachelor’s degree in Biology.

“My undergraduate training at the U gave me a strong background in science in general and biology in particular. It helped motivate me to pursue an advanced degree,” says Roberts.

“Dr. Stephen Durrant taught two evolution courses that really excited me,” says Roberts. “First, was a course on comparative anatomy. The course was part lecture but mostly dissection of representative animal classes from worms to mammals. The second class was the evolution of man; which, in addition to examining various hominid skulls and bones, was my first exposure to reading research papers to supplement the textbook. My first look at how science is done.”

Roberts remembers many of his biology professors, including Fred Evans, Gordon Lark, James Lords, and current emeritus professor Robert Vickery. The early 1970s was an exciting time in the biology department. Gordon Lark was the chairman, and he was building a world-class faculty at the U.

“I took a protozoology course from Dr. Fred Evans. As an extra credit option, I did a little research project to characterize a protozoan he’d found in the crook of a tree. It was my first experience in conducting experiments to solve a problem,” recalls Roberts.

As an undergraduate, Roberts worked part-time at the Radiobiology Lab in the University's School of Medicine. After graduating in 1972 with his biology degree, he joined the Radiobiology Lab as a full-time technician performing clinical chemistry analyses and assisting the lab’s veterinarians with surgeries and autopsies.

“In 1975 I started graduate school in the Department of Anatomy, University of Utah School of Medicine, working toward a Ph.D. degree. Early in my graduate training I attended a seminar on tumor immunology, and I was hooked by the mystery of the immune system,” says Roberts.

Roberts was able to complete his doctorate degree in 1980 in anatomy and published a dissertation on how the cellular immune response influences the emergence and growth of skin cancers.

For the next two years Roberts worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Immunobiology Laboratory at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, in Albuquerque. He focused on gaining technical expertise in flow cytometry, monoclonal antibody techniques, and T-cell cloning.

“In 1982 I returned to the University of Utah School of Medicine as a faculty member in the Department of Dermatology,” says Roberts. “I also became the Director of the Flow Cytometry and Monoclonal Antibody Core Facility of the Utah Regional Cancer Center.” His research group was focused on immunobiology of the skin, immunological mechanisms associated with photo carcinogenesis, and characterization of cloned regulatory T-cells involved in the immune response to skin cancer.

In 1989, Dr. Roberts exited his academic appointment at the U to pursue a 30-year career in pharmaceutical and biotechnology R&D and management.  “I was lucky to work on several cutting-edge vaccine and immunotherapy technologies.”  He is currently retired in Memphis, TN; but continues with some biotech consulting.

“My best advice for students is to pursue your passion, no matter what barriers you face. Be tenacious in what you want to accomplish and you’ll find a way to get there,” says Roberts. “Find a good mentor. Better yet, find a group of mentors!”

Lee and his wife Dawn are dedicated Utah fans. “We try to get to at least one Utah football game during the season, as well as their end of season bowl game,” he says. “When I get back to Salt Lake I always include a visit to the campus. I love the sights, sounds, smells, and feel of the campus and the academic research environment.

“Living in Memphis limits our access to live Utah sports, so we purchased the PAC-12 channel so we can watch all the Utah football and basketball games during the season. And of course I own a full collection of Utah-branded shirts, pants, sweatshirts and jackets!”

When asked about the Covid-19 pandemic, Roberts had the following to say:

Snowbird, UT, with wife Dawn (B.S., Education '71) and grandsons Dillon and Judah.

“I’ve been very interested in following the scientific and medical research into the description of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and Covid-19 disease. Reminds me of when I was a postdoc in 1981 and the early days of the discovery of HIV and AIDS. The exception being that contemporary gene sequencing technology has greatly accelerated the identification of SARS-CoV-2 and characterization of the spike protein antigen.

“Given my vaccine research and development background I’ve also followed with great interest the development, clinical testing and regulatory approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA based anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.”

“I’m heartened that science worked! In real time it demonstrated the global effort of public health officials and scientists working through the scientific process to understand and discover effective clinical responses to curb the Covid-19 pandemic.”

“Conversely, I’m disappointed by the general public and political pushback against scientific facts, scientists and public health initiatives to address the Covid-19 pandemic. I hope that in the future we, the community of scientists, are able to improve the public and political trust in the scientific process, scientific facts and the scientific enterprise.”

 

In 1985 a scholarship was established in the School of Biological Sciences in honor of Stephen D. Durrant, referenced above, to support students studying mammalogy. You can find a listing of established endowments and scholarships that alumni regularly donate to here. 

 
by James DeGooyer
 

Nancy Parry

February 2, 2021

Nancy parry

When Dr. Nancy Parry, BS’63, was eight years old, she talked her mother into taking her to a fortune teller in Ogden. On the way there her mother asked her what she wanted to do for a career. “I want to be a doctor,” she replied with some embarrassment, believing her mother would find the notion preposterous.

“Well. That’s nice,” said her mother.

The tarot card reader who was wearing the garb of a gypsy dealt her four cards while Nancy’s mother took notes. “Oh, you’re going to be a doctor,” the card reader announced. Her mother was floored.

Eventually, Parry, who grew up in Salt Lake City, attended the University of  Utah for her bachelor’s where she recalls in particular the late anatomy professor John Legler as having a formative influence on her. But with the tarot reader’s other-worldly endorsement, thought Parry, “I didn’t study real hard. I mean, I was going to be doctor,” as if it were a done deal.

Confident in the outcome, and further inspired by a boy she was dating who also wanted a medical career, Parry eventually applied to medical school on the east coast. She was declined. “So I jumped into the car and went back to the fortune teller. ‘You told me I was going to be a doctor, and I didn’t get into medical school,’” Parry exclaimed. The fortune teller dealt the four cards again. “You applied to the wrong coast,” she said.

Parry was soon selected as an alternative candidate at the University of California, Irvine and was given two days to get to the west coast. “I went to the anatomy class and it was hot and this guy fainted from the heat and the strong formaldehyde odor, so when he dropped out of med school, I replaced him.”

She was “in.”

In the 1960s, female medical students were a rarity. It was a stigma that Parry had to fight for the rest of her life, even during her training. “I was going with this guy during medical school,” she remembers, “and he said to me one time--made a fatal mistake--he said when we get done with our training we’ll open up a practice and you can assist me. That was the end of that relationship.”

With her signature determination, Parry set up a solo medical practice with her sister, Janet Parry, R.N. (BS'66), and located in Anaheim where she was a general practitioner for thirty years. Parry looked young at the time because, at 28 years old, she was. At work in a 24-bed hospital she remembers arriving during visiting hours. A nurse tried to stop her, telling her visiting hours were over.  “I’m the doctor” Parry told her and proceeded, only to hear behind her back, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

It was a different time in more ways than the fact that women were rarely doctors. During a visit with a patient regularly brought to the office by her son, Parry determined that the woman was unfortunately going to require a hysterectomy. “So I brought in her son.” says Parry.

“Your mother has cancer of the cervix,” she explained.

“Wait a minute,” said the man.

“Don’t worry she’ll be fine…”

“No, wait a minute,” he said again. “I’m not her son, I’m her taxi driver!”

Needless to say, it was the era before HIPPA laws.

Eventually, the two sisters would form Parry Development Company with Nancy's lifelong friend, also a U alumna, Susan Flandro, (BS'63 & JD'68). Together they built a three-story medical office building and then a six-story building with offices for 70 physicians. The company also built a five-operating-room outpatient surgery center in Anaheim.  At one point Nancy had to put her home  up for collateral for the bank loan.

Following their stint in Southern California, the two sisters set up shop in Ketchum, the ski town adjacent to Sun Valley, Idaho, where they opened a small medical office.  Before that, however, Parry needed to advance her provisional ER privileges at the hospital to active status, and commuted to Salmon for months to get her hours logged.

Parry eventually expanded her interests to hyperbarics, a type of treatment that employs a pressurized HBOT chamber used to help wounded warriors with TBI and PTSD and to speed up healing of tissues starved for oxygen. She also trained on a BEMER P.EM.F. device that increases oxygen and nutrient delivery at the cellular level be 30% and potentially decreases the body's inflammation by the same percentage.

In research she has worked on telomeres, the repetitive nucleotide sequences at each end of a chromosome. Activation of telomeres lengthens the shortened chromosome ends for the prevention and repair of the neurodegenerative changes of aging. Additionally, she has addressed topics to the medical sector on the P53 gene and its relationship to bio-identical progesterone. Up-regulating the p53 turns out to be a tumor suppressor gene that in humans is encoded by another gene that may protect patients from breast, uterine, cervix, ovary, prostate and colon cancers.

Through the ups and downs of breaking the “glass ceiling”—which was more of a recurring rather than singular event—Parry developed Parkinson’s and in 2020 she retired from her medical career of 50+ years. Passing the baton, this doctor who helped pioneer women in medicine arranged to have another female physician take over her practice, hard-won, and well-earned.

The pandemic has given Parry more time to read. She also continues advising her friends and fellow doctors and researchers remotely by phone. Her advice to students today is simple: “Don’t give up!”

At her retirement party in August, she had the audience in stitches, regaling them with hilarious stories about her time in the medical field.

Nancy Parry’s acerbic humor and willingness to laugh at herself have endeared her to friends and rivals, whether it’s about fortune tellers or that time she donated a vasectomy procedure to the fireman’s ball auction, only to have to make good on it months later.

“We raised $750 for a good cause,” she says with a smile.

 

The Legler Endowed Lectureship in Human Anatomy, currently held by Mark Nielsen, supports the full cadaver lab for pre-med students at the School of Biological Sciences. 

You can support the legacy of Legler and Nielsen through a donation to the endowment here.

 
by David Pace