Jazz-Playing Scientist Unlocks Secret of Life at 86

A biochemist who restores 1966 Ferraris and jams on saxophone just retired after nearly six decades of groundbreaking discoveries about how life actually works.

Harry Noller arrived at UC Santa Cruz in 1968 when the university was only three years old. He took one look at the towering redwood forest and made up his mind on the spot.

Over the next 58 years, Noller made a discovery that would change biology forever. He proved that RNA powers the ribosome, the tiny cellular machine that turns genetic code into proteins in every living thing on Earth. Without this process, life as we know it couldn't exist.

His work was so transformative that he won the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences in 2017. But Nobel Prize-winning scientist Tom Cech says Noller stands out for another reason: "Rarely do the words cool and biochemist appear in the same sentence, but Harry is cool."

Noller, now 86, never fit the stereotype of a stuffy scientist. He started playing clarinet at age 11 and quickly switched to saxophone. When he attended his first Santa Cruz jam session, he discovered the county's district attorney played trumpet like Dizzy Gillespie and thought he'd "died and gone to heaven."

He always knew there wouldn't be much opportunity to do chemistry as a musician, but he could always play music as a chemist. So he pursued both with equal passion.

The Ripple Effect

In 1992, Noller founded UC Santa Cruz's Center for Molecular Biology of RNA, the first of its kind in the United States. That center has grown into one of the largest global communities for RNA researchers, training countless scientists who continue advancing the field.

His former student Winship Herr remembers Noller sitting in his office, staring out at the redwoods instead of answering questions. "He was mesmerized by the beauty of Santa Cruz," Herr recalls with a smile. "And it's part of the reason why he's been so faithful to Santa Cruz."

For Noller, creativity in science and music are "intimately intertwined." Both require ingenuity and hard work. Both demand seeing patterns others miss and expressing them in new ways.

As he retires his lab after nearly six decades, the RNA Center he founded continues strong, carrying forward his legacy of brilliant, creative science pursued in a place of natural beauty.