Spartan Profiles: Bahareh Azizi
SCIENCE INVESTIGATOR
A new television pilot for PBS, Science Investigators, covers a variety of science stories ranging from the extinction of amphibians to an amazing electric car that can go from 0 to 60 in three seconds. One of the show’s four hosts is Bahareh Azizi, ’99, a biochemistry research associate and lecturer at Georgia Tech whose doctoral research centered on the use of molecular protein switches for applications in gene therapy and drug discovery.
“It’s awesome,” she says of the TV show (see www.pbs.org/wgbh/si). “It has really opened my eyes a lot. In my research, you’re confined to just your area of expertise.”
With no prior TV experience, Azizi has handled the program like a natural (although she looked scared when spinning around a racing track in the electric car).
Born in Houston, TX, to an Irani diplomat, Bahareh grew up in Kuwait, where her family moved after the Iranian revolution of 1979. When she began to consider a college, a neighbor recommended Michigan State. “When I found out that’s where Magic Johnson had gone, I said, ‘OK, I’m going to MSU,’” she recalls. “My parents went nuts.”
But after getting used to Michigan winters—a stark contrast to desert heat—Bahareh grew to love MSU. “No matter what your interest, you can find your niche at MSU,” she says. “Academically it gives you the resources you need to succeed.”
She touts professors Zachary Burton and Jack Preiss. “Jack was so enthusiastic about biochemistry that it must be cool,” she says. And she now wants science to be cool to her television audience.
“We want people to have more awareness of what’s going on in science,” she explains. “And we’re trying to generate interest across all age groups.”
Her own area of expertise is not so shabby either. She is researching how one can control switches that bind proteins to receptor cells, a crucial part of gene therapy.
