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• “It’s revolutionary work that these young people are doing and I’ve never enjoyed anything more than working with these students.”

  William “Bill” Duax

  Professor of Structural Biology

Vote for Bill.

By CHARLOTTE HSU

Published: December 8, 2011

William “Bill” Duax, UB professor of structural biology who runs a research program for some of the Buffalo area’s brightest high school students, is a finalist in a national competition recognizing mentors who connect young people to science.

Duax is one of 21 remaining contestants in Time Warner Cable’s Super Connector Search, and he is hoping UB colleagues and students can help him win.

From now through Dec. 11, members of the public can vote for Duax online. Each person can vote for him once each day.

If Duax prevails, he will use the competition’s $10,000 award to help support the high school research program he runs at the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, where he has worked as a research scientist since 1970.

The program brings students from City Honors School and other local classrooms into Duax’s lab, where they study a soil-dwelling bacterium with extremely unusual DNA. The bacterium, which Duax calls a “living relic,” may hold a key to understanding the origin and evolution of the present genetic code.

“It’s revolutionary work that these young people are doing and I’ve never enjoyed anything more than working with these students,” Duax says.

And he means it.

At 70, he boasts a long list of accomplishments. He has published more than 275 scientific papers, served as president of the International Union of Crystallography and worked closely with prominent researchers, among them the late Herbert Hauptman, Nobel Prize-winning crystallographer.

But he still considers his high school students among his most valued colleagues.

The students—30 of them each year—train and conduct research with Duax in their free time. They work in the lab during the summer or after school and on Fridays during the school year. All are adept at critical thinking; many have skills in computer programming.

“If they want to learn more about scientific research, and are willing to give themselves to it, they should have the opportunity,” Duax says.

In all, his program, which he established informally with a single student seven years ago, has reached more than 60 students from 25 area high schools.

His mentees have presented their research at college-level conferences and gained admission to prestigious universities. One of the earliest participants went on to study at Yale University; another now leads a software development company that is expanding, despite a weak economy.

As a finalist in the Time Warner contest, Duax already has received a $5,000 award for his program. If he wins the additional $10,000, he will use it to provide his students with minimum-wage stipends and assistance with education-related expenses.