Rodney Boyer, the Drs. Edward and Elizabeth Hofma Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at Hope College, has been reappointed to a three-year term on the Education and Professional Development Committee of The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB).
Boyer, who has been on the committee since 1985, is one of 15 members who represent private undergraduate colleges, graduate programs, medical schools, and the pharmaceutical industry.
The ASBMB is the largest organization of molecular life scientists in the United States and is affiliated with the International Union for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IUBMB). The mission of the committee is to promote the molecular life sciences through educational and informational activities for the society's members, the scientific community, and the general public.
Some of the committee's activities include promoting effective teaching practices at all levels, including K-12, undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral; disseminating information on educational and professional development via the society's Web site; and monitoring trends in the education and career paths of biochemistry and molecular biology graduates. The committee is responsible for setting national standards in teaching and publishes the "Recommended Curriculum for Undergraduate Programs in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology."
Boyer was on the chemistry faculty at Hope College from 1974 to 2000. During his time at Hope, he directed the research of 75 undergraduates and published their research results in numerous papers in peer-reviewed journals. His research in iron metabolism was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Dreyfus Foundation. He spent a sabbatical year as an American Cancer Society Scholar in the lab of Nobel Laureate Tom Cech at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Boyer, who currently resides in Bozeman, Mont., is the author of two widely-used textbooks, "Modern Experimental Biochemistry" (third edition, published by Benjamin/Cummings in 2000) and "Concepts in Biochemistry" (second edition, published by John Wiley & Sons in 2002). The latter text is currently being translated into Spanish, Korean and Orthodox Chinese.