Beach Distinguished Lecture Series

About the Beach Lectures

David W. Beach was born in 1925 in London, England. Following service in the Royal Navy, he married Doris Holmes and began his career as a Chartered Accountant. Feeling the urge to expand his horizons, he moved to Canada and began a series of jobs in the aluminum industry that included General Manager of Kawneer, Canada and Vice-President of Kawneer, Inc. As Vice-President of ALUMAX Aluminum Corporation he was instrumental in making it one of the largest and most profitable aluminum companies in the world, prior to his retirement. Their son Michael earned his PhD in Biochemistry in 1987. Inspired by their son’s enthusiasm for science, David and Doris chose to share their good fortune by supporting this biochemistry graduate program. This long-term support is intended to promote intellectual curiosity, a commitment to excellence, and an appreciation of science in all those involved.

2024 Beach Lecturer

 Dr. Brenda Bass: Distinguished Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Unive

Dr. Bass is known for her contributions in defining double-stranded RNA-mediated pathways, including discovery of ADAR RNA editing enzymes, and models and experiments that established Dicer's role in RNA silencing. Dr. Bass obtained a B.A. in chemistry from Colorado College, and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the Univer-sity of Colorado, Boulder. She was a post-doctoral fellow at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center prior to joining the faculty of the University of Utah School of Medicine. Dr. Bass is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2007 she served as President of the RNA Socie-ty. She received research support from the Pew Scholars Program, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, HHMI, and her NIH support includes a Director’s Pioneer Award (2011) and Transformative Re-search Award (2020).

 

Past Beach Lectures

2019, John Allen, University College, London, U.K.

2018 Chaitan Khosla, Stanford University

2016 Jef Boeke, New York University

2015 Wilhelm Gruissem, Institute for Systems Genetics, ETH Zurich

2014 Ruedi Aebersold, Institute of Molecular Systems Biology, ETH Zurich

2013 Lynne Maquat, University of Rochester Medical Center

2012 Robert Roeder, The Rockefeller University

2011 Hugo Bellan, Baylor College of Medicine

2010 Cathie Martin, John Innes Centre, Colney, Norwich, UK

2009 Eric Nigg, University of Basel, Switzerland

2008 Tom Kunkel, NIEHS

2007 David Allis, The Rockefeller University

2006 Chris Somerville, Carnegie Institution and Stanford University

2005 Mark Stitt, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology

2004 Craig Garner, Stanford University

2000 Timothy J. Richmond, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland

2000 Gerald Joyce, The Scripps Research Institute

1998 Stanley B. Prusiner, University of California at San Francisco, School of Medicine

1998 Paul B. Sigler, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Yale University

1995 Elizabeth Blackburn, University of California at San Francisco

1994 Yasuyuki Yamada, Kyoto University and Nara Institute of Science and Technology

1994 Edwin G. Krebs, University of Washington

1993 Thomas R. Cech, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

1991 Inder M. Verma, The Salk Institute​