Steven Aust

College of Science

Chemistry and Biochemistry

Steven Aust, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Utah State University, is the 2003 recipient of the D. Wynne Thorne Research Award. Aust’s accolades include $12 million dollars in research funding, 350 published papers, the supervision of 50 graduate students and 16 post-doctorates and the Governor’s Medal for Science and Technology. Aust is an internationally recognized expert in a number of fields, including the toxicology of polyhalogenated aromatic hydrocarbons, lipid peroxidation, the role of iron in the deleterious oxidation of biomolecules and the degradation of lignin and environmental pollutants by white-rot fungi. Aust’s research focuses on the use of fungi to biodegrade harmful substances such as pesticides, poisons and explosives. His success in this area has had many commercial applications. Aust’s laboratory is also striving to learn how iron is stored in the protein ferritin in cells and how to safely remove excess amounts, which has implications for the understanding of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.