Briefly Noted Ole Jensen BS’72 recently edited the 3rd edition of The Sinus Bone Graft. Mark Durham, DMD at the U’s School of Dentistry says of it, “This is the source book on the topic. The international network of clinical scientists, required to assemble the essential knowledge on this critical but highly esoteric topic, cannot be overstated. Dr. Ole Jensen, with his international renown as one of the world’s leading experts in oral reconstruction, is considered one of the few people who could assemble such a diverse, broad, and profound team of authors on such an important topic. The profession is fortunate to have a volume of work on this scale, and an international leader who made it happen.” Craig Thulin BA’89 worked in the labs of Dr. Baldomero “Toto” Olivera among others before moving to Seattle to secure his PhD in Biochemistry. At what is now Utah Valley University he joined the Dept. of Chemistry and from 2004 to 2008 was an adjunct in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the U School of Medicine. This stemmed from Thulin’s research looking for serum proteomic biomarkers of complications of pregnancy and led to the formation of a startup company called Sera Prognostics. Today he continues to lead students in mentored undergraduate research, collaborating with faculty members at BYU and Utah State University, and working on investigations on the bioanalytical chemistry of honey. Russell Marion Nelson Sr. BS’45, former surgeon and long-time leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints became its president in January 2018 at age 93. He was a member of the LDS Church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles for nearly 34 years. A native of Salt Lake, he earned a PhD at the University of Minnesota, where he worked on the research team developing the heart-lung machine that in 1951 supported the first ever human open-heart surgery using mechanical takeover of heart and lungs (cardiopulmonary bypass). A medic for the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he returned to Salt Lake as professor at the U’s School of Medicine in 1955. Heng Xie PhD’04 taught middle-school science before joining the team as senior scientist at IDbyDNA, a start-up that has developed transformative metagenomics technology to simultaneously profile tens of thousands of microorganisms and pathogens in any sample. At the U Xie worked with Kent Golic in his lab studying genetics and cell biology. Xie hasn’t left public education entirely. When she isn’t working in R&D in Salt Lake City where the lab and offices of IDbyDNA are located, she tutors students in biology, chemistry and math, including calculus.
Taryn Wicijowski BS’14 took her Pac-12 Scholar-Athlete of the Year talents overseas, in 2015 joining the top basketball league in Italy. “I found professional basketball to be much more about individual statistics and achievements than collegiate [ball],” she says. Eventually, she was accepted to the medical school at the University of Alberta, close to Saskatchewan where she’s originally from. “I have had great patient interactions,” she reports. “Each experience makes you feel like you’re really making a difference in peoples’ lives and further motivates you to one day be a physician.” Michael T. Ghiselin BS’60 is a biologist, and philosopher as well as historian of biology. Currently scientist-in-residence emeritus at the California Academy of Sciences, he is known for his early work on sea slugs, and has had both a species (Hypsedlodoris ghisenlini) and the defensive chemical that it contains (ghiselinin) named after him. Widely quoted on the relationship between science and society, he is perhaps most known for the dictum, “Scratch an altruist and watch a hypocrite bleed,” first recorded in 1974 in his book The Economy of Nature and the Evolution of Sex. Photo by Alan E. Leviton, with permission James F. Berry PhD ’78 joined the faculty at Elmhurst College in Illinois, and taught biology courses there until he retired in 2017. He received a JD degree from IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law and spent his law career teaching both biology and environmental law. The author of many articles (and two books) about the biology of freshwater turtles and environmental law, including The Environmental Law & Compliance Handbook, he is now retired near Charleston, SC, where he continues to teach an online biology course. Daina Graybosch, BS’01 completed a PhD in Chemistry and Chemical Biology from Harvard. Today she is Senior Research Analyst covering Immuno-Oncology at SVB Leerink, a leading investment bank in New York City, specializing in healthcare. Prior to joining the firm in 2018, she worked at McKinsey & Company as a Senior Expert and Head of McKinsey’s Center for Asset Optimization, as well as the U.S. Head of the McKinsey Cancer Center. In these roles, she developed several McKinsey solutions that bring data and advanced analytics to pharmaceutical development decisions. In her 11 years at McKinsey, she developed a rich understanding of oncology through her work with companies across the value chain, including Pharmaceutical, Diagnostic, Academic Medical Center, and Genomic/Data. Briefly Noted, continued page 5
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