| Virginia W. Cornish, PhD | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Columbia University (BA) University of California, Berkeley (PhD) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (post-doc) |
| Known for | Chemical Biology, Genome Project-Write |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Columbia University |
| Doctoral advisor | Peter G. Schultz |
Virginia Wood Cornish is the Helena Rubinstein Professor of Chemistry at Columbia University.
Background and education
Cornish received her BA in chemistry in 1991, working with professor Ronald Breslow. Her PhD research, on site-specific protein labeling and mutagenesis, was carried out with Peter Schultz. Cornish was an NSF postdoctoral fellow at MIT with Robert T. Sauer. She is the first female graduate from Columbia College to be hired to a full-time faculty position since the College became coeducational in 1983.
Research
Cornish and her lab group use the tools of systems biology, synthetic biology, and DNA encoding to produce desired chemical products from specific organismic hosts. In 2016, she was part of a notable group of genomic scientists calling for increased ethical study and self-regulation as the costs and effort of creating de novo genomes plummeted. As the "read" phase of the Human Genome Project was completed in 2004, this new effort was dubbed Genome Project-Write.
Awards
- 2009 – Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry
- 2009 – Irving Sigal Young Investigator Award
- 2003 – Sloan Foundation Fellow
References
- "Chemistry Group Directory". www.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2018-11-27.
- Cornish, Virginia W.; Hahn, Klaus M.; Schultz, Peter G. (January 1996). "Site-Specific Protein Modification Using a Ketone Handle". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 118 (34): 8150–8151. doi:10.1021/ja961216x. ISSN 0002-7863.
- "WEDDINGS; Virginia Cornish, Donald Rollock". The New York Times. 24 September 2000. Retrieved 2018-11-27.
- "Columbia College Today". www.college.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2022-01-27.
- Boeke, Jef D.; Church, George; Hessel, Andrew; Kelley, Nancy J.; Arkin, Adam; Cai, Yizhi; Carlson, Rob; Chakravarti, Aravinda; Cornish, Virginia W. (2016-07-08). "The Genome Project-Write". Science. 353 (6295): 126–127. Bibcode:2016Sci...353..126B. doi:10.1126/science.aaf6850. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 27256881. S2CID 206649424.
- "The Protein Society : Protein Society Awards". www.proteinsociety.org. Retrieved 2018-11-27.