Since joining the CU-Boulder faculty in 1992, Professor Ahn has worked to deepen our understanding of the complex workings of the human cell. Her research focuses on the chemical signaling mechanisms that cause changes in cells in our bodies, including changes that result in cancer. Under- standing these mechanisms could accelerate the development of targeted—even individualized—therapies for cancer, heart disease, and other illnesses. Because proteins are the key to understanding cell dynamics, Professor Ahn is devising new techniques to study proteins at the molecular level, including mass spectrometry. Her pioneering work places her in the forefront of proteomics, the effort to define the complete composition of cells. Professor Ahn is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and an adjunct professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, where she also is a member of the Cancer Center. She is president of the U.S. Human Proteome Organization and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Molecular Biology, Cancer Research, and Molecular and Cellular Proteomics as well as the editorial advisory board of Biochemistry.
