Five Graduate Students Awarded David Goeddel Fellowships

October 21, 2016

By Kim McDonald

Five graduate students in the Division of Biological Sciences have been awarded fellowships this year from an endowment established by UC San Diego alumnus and biotechnology pioneer David Goeddel, ’72.

Goeddel established the David V. Goeddel Endowed Graduate Fellowship at UC San Diego to support and foster the innovators and scientists of the future. His endowment, which is being matched by the division, each year supports the research and scholarly activities of outstanding biological Sciences graduate students.

This year, two graduate students “who have shown outstanding potential in their research and class performance during their first three years of graduate school” received the 2016 David V. Goeddel Endowed Graduate Fellowship. They are:

Elizabeth Hetherington

A graduate student in Professor Carolyn Kurle’s laboratory, who is evaluating the effects of inter-annual environmental variability on food web dynamics and the trophic ecology of several species in open-ocean, pelagic ecosystems.

Tin Ki (Angela) Tsang

A graduate student in Professor Chih-Ying Su's laboratory.

In addition, three graduate students in the division received the 2016 Goeddel Chancellor’s Fellowship, given annually to “fourth or fifth year graduate students who have shown outstanding productivity in their research.” They are:

Ben Rubin

A graduate student in Professor Susan Golden’s laboratory, who is studying the model photosynthetic bacteria, Synechococcus elongatus.

Danielle Hagstrom

A graduate student in Professor Eva-Maria Schoetz-Collins' laboratory, who is studying the mechanisms by which common pesticides damage the developing nervous system.

Mai Khuong

A graduate student in Professor Jim Kadonaga’s laboratory, who is studying the “prenucleosome,” an intermediate to the nucleosome that was discovered in the Kadonaga lab.

Goeddel graduated from UC San Diego in 1972 with a degree in chemistry, and went on to earn his doctorate from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

In 1978, he became the first scientist hired by Genentech. While there, he successfully used genetic engineering to coax bacteria into creating synthetic human insulin, human growth hormone and human tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) for use in therapeutic medicine.

A member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is a longtime supporter of the university and a current member of the Biological Sciences Dean’s Leadership Council.