Larry Gold

Larry Gold, Ph.D., is an internationally recognized scientist whose research at the University of Colorado Boulder has spawned numerous discoveries and commercially successful biotechnology patents. Gold, who has taught at CU-Boulder since 1970 and was chair of the molecular, cellular and developmental biology department from 1988 to 1992, helped to open the MCD Biology Building in 1995. The building, renamed the Gold Biosciences Building in 2013, has been home to groundbreaking discoveries, including innovations by Gold himself, which can lead to longer and better lives.

Gold, a bioscience industry pioneer and entrepreneur, has conducted DNA and RNA research resulting in new drug families. He currently is the chairman of the board of the biotech company SomaLogic in Boulder, Colorado. He founded NeXagen, Inc. in 1992, which later became NeXstar Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and merged with Gilead Sciences, Inc. The company is a developer of commercial products for infectious disease treatments. Gold also co-founded the biotech company Synergen, Inc. in 1981.

For his contributions to teaching and science, Gold has won numerous local and national awards including CU-Boulder’s Distinguished Research Lectureship award, the highest honor bestowed by faculty on a faculty member. Gold also has won the Merit Award and the Career Development Award, both of the National Institutes of Health, and the Lifetime Award and the Chiron Prize for Biotechnology, both of the Colorado BioScience Association.

In addition, he has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1993 and was elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences in 1995. Valuable and commercially successful patents resulting from Gold’s discoveries made at CU-Boulder in combination with several private donations generously made by Gold have brought significant recognition and revenues both to the MCDB department and to the university while advancing human health and wellness.