Professor Alexis Komor is the Recipient of the 2026 Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry
The Division is very excited to announce that Professor Alexis Komor has been selected as the recipient of the 2026 Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry! Administered by the Division of Biochemistry and Chemical Biology (BIOL) of the American Chemical Society (ACS) and sponsored by Eli Lilly, this award was established to stimulate fundamental research in biological chemistry by scientists within 10 years of their last postdoctoral training. Komor was selected because of her substantial and significant contributions to the genome editing and nucleic acid chemistry fields. Her lab has expanded the scope, efficiency, precision, and therapeutic relevance of genome editing for point mutations, which are the largest class of disease-associated genetic variants.
Professor Komor received her PhD under the direction of Jacqueline Barton at Caltech and then carried out postdoctoral research with David Liu at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University. Professor Komor developed the first base editor; this ground-breaking development enabled the direct conversion of one base pair to another via enzymatic chemical modification DNA nucleobases. This was the first example of genome editing using a DNA damage intermediate other than a double-stranded DNA break and is a revolution in the field. Her seminal publication describing this work was published in Nature in 2016 and has already been cited over 5,000 times. The practical implications are already being seen - least 18 base editing clinical trials have begun, with at least six trials reporting results already. In these cases, patients have benefited from base editing—a remarkable testament to the positive impact Alexis’s scientific contributions have already had—and this impact is just beginning. Since joining the faculty at the University of California at San Diego in 2017 she has continued to make substantial contributions to this field, developing new genome editing tools, providing mechanistic insights into how they function, and applying them to model potential disease-causing point mutations.
In addition to being a highly productive and driven junior faculty member, Alexis has demonstrated her dedication to teaching and outreach. Each year, she teaches over 200 students in her general chemistry course, and in 2023, she developed the first course on genome editing at the University of California at San Diego. She has also invested significant time and resources into outreach to the San Diego community. Alexis orchestrated an outreach program with the San Diego Better Education for Women in Science and Engineering community, during which over fifty middle-school-aged girls came to campus and toured the laboratories of five female faculty members. Alexis developed a genome editing outreach laboratory activity through this program, which she has optimized and implemented at local public high schools and taught over 400 high school students.
Her efforts have not gone unnoticed. Professor Komor has been awarded several highly prestigious awards and distinctions such as the “Talented 12” distinction by C&EN News, a Cottrell Scholar award, a “40 under 40” distinction by Fortune Magazine, and the inaugural Rosalind Franklin Medal from the Rosalind Franklin Society.
The Division of Biochemistry and Chemical Biology will be hosting a symposium in Professor Komor's honor at the Spring 2026 National meeting of the ACS. Stay tuned for more details!