Chemistry Alumni - Bill Jack

Bill Jack has long been interested in finding new ways to look at the world. It all began when he was an undergraduate of chemistry at the University of Utah in Dr. Swaggart’s summer physics course where the instructor announced on day one, “I’m going to teach you about a new way to look at the world.” Bill not only applied this to his scientific education, but carried it with him into a handful of humanities courses he took as an undergrad where he learned about the world of James Joyce and other literary and cultural giants. As much as Bill enjoyed his undergraduate experience, he wishes he would have slowed down to take his time exploring more humanities courses in addition to his chemistry education.

Bill’s educational foundation led him to a graduate program at Duke University where he thought he would begin a career as a physical biochemist while “tailing” Sidney Velick all summer. However, to simplify his then newlywed life, he requested to work in a lab with Paul Modrich where he ended up researching an enzyme that became foundational to his 32-year career at New England Biolabs. Bill greatly enjoyed his career at NEB, where he became a Senior Research Scientist and served as the Executive Director of Research for a number of years. In these roles, he was able to take risks in his research that gave him both a lot of freedom as well as a daily sense of excitement.

While researching at NEB, Bill was able to collaborate with scientists all over the world at many institutions and universities as they worked to replicate naturallyoccurring DNA splicing. “I believe that there will be steps along the way that we will have insights into other organisms, other processes whether they be normal ones or ones that cause disease, and there’s also even prospects from a commercial perspective that some of the enzymes involved will be useful in advancing other molecular biology techniques.” Bill’s work at NEB takes enzymes that occur in nature, extracts them, and characterizes them so they’re available in other workflows to prepare DNA sequences for all kinds of research purposes. Recently, Bill expressed an interest in giving back to the Department of Chemistry to help graduate students as they begin careers in uncertain times. And so, in an effort to give students something that would last throughout their careers, the department decided to use funds donated by Bill to create a graduate award for the best thesis in biological chemistry. For the next 30 years, a student will be awarded the William E. Jack Life Science Graduate Research Award which comes with a cash prize as well as lifelong recognition for such an achievement. In April 2019, Bill Jack received a Distinguished Alumni award from the department alongside Kurt Zilm, the current Chair of Yale’s Chemistry Department, and Michelle Williams, the Global Group President of Altuglas International at Arkema. These three alumni came for a celebratory visit, and brought with them a deep sense of camaraderie and enthusiasm for the chemistry department and the role it played in helping them find their way in their diverse and meaningful careers. The first recipient of the award this year is Dr. Megan Browning who was part of Cindy Burrows’s group. Megan studied DNA G-quadruplexes and RNA modifications using a protein nanopore.

What this entails was using a protein nanopore as a tiny hole between 2 chambers, and a voltage between the two chambers to drive ions through the pore. Some of these ions are small buffer ions that flow through easily. However, larger ions like DNA and RNA get stuck and block the smaller buffer ions from going through causing a decrease in electrical current through the pore that I detected. This provides information about the DNA and RNA such as its shape or what modifications are on it.

Megan is absolutely fascinated with the study of DNA and RNA, especially in roles beyond the simple A,T,G and C information storage. She was encouraged by a peer, Yun Ding, to join the Burrows lab as he saw it as a perfect fit for Megan who was starting graduate school with a twoyear-old. Megan has just started a post-doctoral fellowship on upper campus at the University of Utah working with Amy Barrios in the College of Pharmacy studying phosphatases. “I love the U so much I wasn’t ready to leave. I’d love to end up someday at the NIAID studying viruses,” says Megan. She feels that receiving this award will help her help others to make a significant impact in people’s everyday lives.