University of Colorado Professor Leslie Leinwand has been named a recipient of one of two Marsico Endowed Chairs of Excellence for her teaching and research activities associated with her studies of genetic heart defects.
A professor in CU-Boulder's molecular, cellular and developmental biology department and professor in the cardiology division at the CU Health Sciences Center, Leinwand will assume her endowed chair this month. The Marsico Endowed Chairs of Excellence were established in 2002 with a $5 million donation from Tom and Cydney Marsico of Denver to support CU faculty members whose intellectual achievements have received high national and international recognition.
Leinwand joins Nobel laureate Eric Cornell, a CU-Boulder adjoint physics professor and fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology who was named a Marsico Endowed Chair recipient in 2002 along with CU-Boulder Distinguished Professor and Nobel laureate Carl Wieman. Wieman left his CU-Boulder faculty position this month for the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, although he will retain a 20 percent appointment at CU-Boulder to head up the Science Education Initiative.
Leinwand also directs CU's Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biotechnology, founded in 2003 to foster new research, teaching and technology development in the fields of life sciences, physical sciences, math, computational sciences and engineering. In addition, she is a co-founder of Myogen Inc., a highly successful CU spinoff company begun in 1999 to research and treat cardiovascular ailments with small molecule therapeutics.
"Leslie Leinwand is truly one of the University of Colorado's top faculty members, and this distinguished award is very deserving," said CU President Hank Brown. "Her research efforts continue to advance biomedicine internationally and her creative teaching has touched the lives of thousands of students."
Chair of CU-Boulder's MCD department from 1995 to 2006, Leinwand has won a number of national awards for her research and teaching. Last April she was one of only 20 faculty nationwide to be named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute professor, an undergraduate education award given by the nonprofit medical research organization in Chevy Chase, Md., for innovative teaching concepts.
In May, Leinwand also was awarded a $1.9 million grant from HHMI to fund research opportunities for undergraduates and to bring hands-on science education to thousands of Colorado K-12 teachers through teacher workshops, courses and outreach programs to schools. Part of the award includes funding for an undergraduate laboratory research program known as the Python Project that focuses on the heart biology of constricting snakes, which has relevance to human disease, said Leinwand, who studies a genetic heart disease known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy that is the leading cause of sudden death in young athletes.
"I am greatly honored to be the recipient of the Marsico Endowed Chair of Excellence," said Leinwand. "The University of Colorado is very fortunate to have individuals like Tom and Cydney Marsico among its supporters, and this endowed chair exemplifies the commitment to excellence in teaching and research that we all care so much about."
Marsico, the chairman, CEO and portfolio manager for Denver-based Marsico Capital Management, graduated from CU-Boulder in 1977 and has an MBA from the University of Denver. His wife, Cydney, received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from DU.
Leinwand, who was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2005, also was the recipient of a National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute MERIT award in 1993. The 10-year award is given by the institute to investigators to support outstanding health and medicine research.