Biodesign 2020 Year in Review

Award-winning achievements Pandemic response team receives top Arizona award The Biodesign Institute was named Innovator of the Year — Academia for its COVID-19 public testing efforts at Arizona’s 17th annual Governor’s Celebration of Innovation. “The world took a dramatic turn, and initially it seemed that all we could do was hang on,” said Steven Zylstra, the event’s host and the president and CEO of the Arizona Technology Council. “Fortunately, we in Arizona pulled together, took on the new challenge and found new hope for our future.”

Garcia-Pichel honored for work on microbe communities Ferran Garcia-Pichel, director of the Biodesign Center for Fundamental and Applied Microbiomics, received the 2021 D.C. White Award from the American Academy of Microbiology. This prestigious award recognizes distinguished accomplishments in interdisciplinary research and mentoring in microbiology. Garcia-Pichel’s research focuses on the diverse adaptations and impacts of microbes in natural environments that range from desert soils to shallow marine waters. For example, he and his team discovered that the progression of atmospheric oxygen on Earth can be traced through the evolution of genes in scytonemin molecules, commonly called the “sunscreen molecule,” which helps some microbes in filtering harmful UV rays.

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