Lila M. Gierasch '70

2008-2013
Lila Gierasch is Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Chemistry at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She graduated from Mount Holyoke in 1970 with a major in chemistry and obtained her Ph.D. in Biophysics from Harvard University in 1975. She held faculty positions at Amherst College, the University of Delaware, and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School before joining UMass as Head of the Chemistry Department in 1994. She subsequently served as Head of the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and in 2004 stepped down from her administrative duties to return to full-time research and teaching.

Gierasch’s research focuses on protein folding—how the three-dimensional structures of proteins are encoded in their sequences. In 2006 she received a prestigious NIH Director’s Pioneer Award to tackle the challenging aspects of protein folding in vivo. Many major human diseases, such as cystic fibrosis, Alzheimer’s, and Huntington’s diseases, arise from ‘mistakes’ in protein folding. Gierasch has published over 200 papers in her career and served as research advisor to many undergraduate, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. She is committed to interdisciplinary education and research and believes that the power and rigor of the physical and chemical sciences are needed to tackle major questions in life sciences.

Gierasch has received numerous honors for her work and has been very active in professional societies. She was awarded an honorary degree from Mount Holyoke College in 2002, and in 2006 she received the Garvan-Olin Medal of the American Chemical Society. She has been a member of the National Advisory Council to the General Medical Sciences Institute of the National Institutes of Health and the Advisory Committee to the Math & Physical Sciences Directorate of the National Science Foundation. She is currently Editor-in-Chief of Biopolymers: Peptide Science and belongs to the editorial advisory boards of several other journals.

Outside of work, Gierasch enjoys an active outdoor life in Ashfield, MA, with her husband, John Pylant, as well as their three dogs, three donkeys, and one horse. Gierasch has ridden horseback all her life and was an active rider at Mount Holyoke.