There’s a genius in the Bronco family. Jason Buenrostro ’09 is the first Santa Clara University graduate to be named a MacArthur Fellow. Colloquially called the “Genius Grant,” the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship is an annual prize awarded to about 20 people whose work shows promise on moving the needle on some of the world’s most significant social challenges.
Buenrostro, a first-generation college student who is now an associate professor at Harvard University in the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, is researching methods and technologies that advance our understanding of the mechanisms regulating gene expression—the process through which instructions in our DNA are converted into functional products and determine what each cell does.
Think, for a moment, of the cells that make up our bodies as light bulbs. Some bulbs are always on. Others are off until they’re needed for a specific purpose. And sometimes, a bulb malfunctions. It’s lit up when it should be dark. Gene expression, then, is like flipping the light switch that controls each bulb. It’s the process that turns the light on or off.