ICB Caltech Project Leader David Tirrell Named Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors

Congratulations to David Tirrell for election as fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). Tirrell is one of only a handful of people to have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), and now NAI. He is also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and has received the Harrison Howe, S. C. Lind, and Madison Marshall Awards of the American Chemical Society (AACS), among other honors.

According to the NAI, election as a fellow is the “highest professional distinction accorded to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society.”

In addition to Tirrell’s contributions to the ICB as a project leader for Systems and Synthetic Biology, Tirrell is Caltech’s provost, Larson provostial chair and McCollum-Corcoran professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. His research focus is on reinterpreting the genetic code and how artificial genes can be used to create artificial proteins with useful properties.

The NAI's 2018 class of fellows includes three Nobel Prize winners, 59 members of the National Academies, and 43 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Collectively, they are the named inventors of nearly 4,000 U.S. patents.