BSD Diversity Committee

The BSD Diversity Committee works to enhance diversity in UChicago Biosciences by providing a central office that coordinates and promotes:

Social, cultural, and scientific interactions
Awareness of issues facing underrepresented students
Administrative student support, educational programs, and mentorship
Availability of funds for diversity programs
Student recruitment strategies through networking with established regional and national URM-serving organizations as well as by enhancing our programs' visibility.

The committee is led by co-chairs Eileen Dolan, Medicine and Cancer Biology, and Adam Hammond, Biophysical Sciences, and is composed of faculty, administrators, and students who represent the breadth of our graduate programs.

1965

Donald F. Steiner: discovered proinsulin, advancing diabetes treatment

Biochemist Donald F. Steiner, SM’56, MD’56, discovered proinsulin, the first “pro-hormone” and precursor to insulin. The 1965 finding led to the synthetic production of human insulin, markedly improving therapy for diabetes sufferers, and laid the groundwork for improved understanding of how other proteins in the body are made.

1975

Janet Rowley: discovered cancer can be genetic

Presidential Medal of Freedom winner and geneticist Janet Davison Rowley, LAB’42, PhB’45, SB’46, MD’48, discovered the first consistent chromosomal abnormalities associated with cancer in the 1970s, demonstrating a link between cancer and genetics. She later was a key player in the development of the first precisely targeted anti-cancer drug.

1916

Ernest Everett Just: discovered significant aspect of cell cleavage

Ernest Everett Just, PhD 1916, worked with University of Chicago zoologist Frank Lillie at what is now the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. During dissertation research for his PhD in zoology, he made an important discovery about cell cleavage, showing that the sperm entry point determines the first cleavage plane in the egg of the marine annelid Nereis limbata.

2016

Zhe-Xi Luo: discovered earliest-known arboreal and subterranean mammals

Zhe-Xi Luo, professor of organismal biology and anatomy at UChicago, was part of a team of researchers from UChicago and Beijing who discovered fossils of the earliest-known arboreal and subterranean mammals. The fossils suggest that early mammals were as ecologically diverse as modern mammals. Luo’s student David Grossnickle (Evolutionary Biology) also contributed to the research and was an author of one of the Science paper published on this discovery.

Fossils of the earliest-known arboreal and subterranean mammals

1941

Charles B. Huggins: introduced hormonal treatment of cancer

In 1941, cancer researcher Charles B. Huggins treated patients suffering from advanced prostate cancer by removing the hormone the cancers needed to grow. Hormonal treatment has since become a mainstay of care for several types of cancer, including breast and gynecological cancers.