CU Boulder biochemist wins prestigious fellowship
Postdoctoral researcher Nathan Bullen announced as a 2025 Jane Coffin Childs fellow, supporting his research on how organisms survive when their RNA is under attack
A Թ of Colorado Boulder postdoctoral researcher specializing in biochemistry is one of 29 to be awarded a Jane Coffin Childs fellowship in 2025.
Nathan Bullen, a postdoctoral scholar in the CU Boulder Department of Biochemistry and theAaron Whiteley Lab, studies how organisms survive when their RNA is under attack. As a Jane Coffin Childs (JCC) fellow, he will receive three years of salary funding to support his research out of the almost $8 million the JCC has committed to its fellows this year.
(JCC Fund) is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious postdoctoral fellowships in the United States. Established in 1937 to honor the memory of Jane Coffin Childs, who died from breast cancer in 1936, and to support cancer research, the JCC Fund has since expanded its mission to include fundamental basic scientific research into the causes and treatment of human disease.
Nathan Bullen, a postdoctoral scholar in the CU Boulder Department of Biochemistry and the Aaron Whiteley Lab,was awarded a 2025 Jane Coffin Childs fellowship.
Each year, the JCC Fund selects between 25 and 30 early-career postdoctoral fellows from a pool of more than 350 applicants and, to date, has helped more than 1,800 researchers to pursue a cure for cancer and other human diseases. Bullen and his Whiteley Lab colleagues are working toward this goal by studying immune systems and infectious diseases to develop next-generation therapeutics.
Supporting early-career scientists
In addition to furthering important biomedical research and improving human health, the JCC also helps its fellows advance their careers. Current JCC Fund fellows attend an annual symposium that includes career-development sessions and other activities intended to improve their scientific, communication and networking skills. Since its inception, the JCC Fund has produced many scientific leaders in their respective fields, including numerous Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators and seven Nobel laureates.
“These sorts of postdoc fellowship are important for trainees like Nathan because they demonstrate their ability to secure competitive funding,” saysAaron Whiteley, CU Boulder biochemistry assistant professor, head of the Aaron Whiteley Lab and a past JCC postdoctoral fellow. “They are an important step in building the resume required to run your own research group. Fellowships also help the labs that the fellows belong to, as they cover some of the cost of personnel, saving funding for experimentation.”
Bullen’s work in the Whiteley lab aims to shed new light on highly conserved systems related to RNA repair.
“Our lab is broadly focused on conserved immune pathways shared between bacteria and eukaryotes (organisms whose cells have a membrane-bound nucleus),” Whiteley says. Because bacteria are easy to study, they provide a novel way to gain insight into the way these elements work in the human immune system.
According to Whiteley, the proteins involved in RNA repair are conserved between bacteria and humans. This is similar to how certain immune pathways are conserved, as outlined in he andHannah Ledvina wrote.
“While much of our work centers on immune pathways,” he says, “we’ve found that these similarities extend into more fundamental processes.”
One example of this is RNA repair, which is essential because of the vital roles that RNA plays in cells, including helping to produce proteins. Bullen is working in this area, specifically investigating how organisms survive when their RNA is under attack.
This project is still in its early stages, Whiteley says, but “we’re making strong progress and excited about where it is heading.”
Advancing research
The JCC fellowship recognizes not just the proposed research, but who the researcher is as a scientist. According to Whiteley, Bullen has a passion for pursuing interesting and meaningful questions. “That might sound obvious for a scientist, but it’s honestly not always the case,” he says. “A big part of being successful in research is knowing what makes for a good question, and I think Nathan has a well-tuned compass in that regard.
"My goal now is to live up to the opportunity and discover something genuinely cool about how the natural world works."
“He’ll probably say he’s very lucky to have been selected as a JCC fellow, which is true, but I’ll also add that Nathan did excellent work during his PhD and has big ideas for his postdoc. He has absolutely earned this opportunity. I’m very excited about the work he’s pursuing in the lab and I’m looking forward to the discoveries he’ll make over the next few years with the support of the JCCF.”
Bullen earned a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from the Թ of Waterloo and a PhD in biochemistry from McMaster Թ. He has been working at CU as a postdoctoral fellow since 2024.
“I’m incredibly honored to have been selected as a Jane Coffin Childs fellow,” Bullen says. “It’s hard to turn your passion into a career. Academia isn’t an easy road, and it comes with a lot of uncertainty. Awards like the JCCF are more than financial support; they’re a real vote of confidence in early-career scientists like me.
“These types of awards are basically saying: we like your ideas, and we think you can do something great. At this stage, that vote of confidence makes a huge difference. My goal now is to live up to the opportunity and discover something genuinely cool about how the natural world works. I am hopeful that the discoveries I make during my postdoc will serve as the foundation for my own independent research group in the future.”
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