November 21, 2024

Jim Hopper Memorial Undergraduate Research Award 2024

The Department is delighted to recognize the 2024 awardee of the The Jim Hopper Memorial Undergraduate Research Fellowship

Savanna Schutte is a Molecular Genetics major in the Singh lab, which studies nonsense-mediated decay (NMD) of premature termination codon-containing mRNAs. She earned this award for her research focusing on the role of UPF3 and the other proteins that make up the premature termination complex that facilitates this pathway.

Savannah presented her research at the 2024 Molecular Genetics open house and shared her answers to a few questions:

Why did you pick Molecular Genetics at OSU?

I have been fascinated by genetics ever since I first learned about it in high school biology. I found that Ohio State was one of the few universities that offered a program in this specific topic and had such an emphasis on research. Choosing this program has given me a solid understanding of the broad realm of biology while also catering to my individual interests.

What excites you most about being involved in research?

I think it’s so exciting to discover things in your research, even if it’s just a weird piece of data that leads to more questions. Everything is significant! The fact is, you’ve still uncovered something that no one else knew before.

This award was funded by the The Jim Hopper Memorial Undergraduate Research Fund.

Dr. Jim Hopper was a valued faculty member in the Department of Molecular Genetics from 2006 until his untimely death in 2017 at the age of 74. Jim's research sought to understand how cells respond to environmental cues by regulating transcriptional switches, with a focus on galactose-responsive transcription in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. His lab was the first to clone the yeast Gal4 gene, and his work contributed greatly to our understanding of post-transcriptional regulation of genetic switches. His work resulted in more than 50 publications and was funded by the NIH for over 30 years.

Jim was a generous and thoughtful scientist with widespread interests and talents. He was a world-class gymnast (All American on still rings in 1963) and other hobbies included glass blowing, woodworking, stone work, gardening, snorkeling, photography, cooking, and reading. Most importantly, Jim was an amazing husband and father and a dedicated mentor and teacher to his students.

The Jim Hopper Memorial Fund was made possible by contributions from colleagues, friends, and family of Jim Hopper and by a gift of the estate of Dr. Charles H. Baer to the Department of Molecular Genetics. Consider supporting the fund here