Peter Cho was a Dean’s Honored Graduate in Biochemistry. He was active in many programs on and off campus, frequently in positions of leadership. For example, he was a Freshman Research Institute mentor and ambassador, a pharmacy tech, big brother in Big Brothers Big Sisters, and a peer assistant for general chemistry. He participated in the SURP program at UTMB Galveston and volunteered at Brackenridge Children’s Hospital. Peter held many scholarships including an Unrestricted Presidential Scholarship and several pre-health professions scholarships. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa Scholars Helping Scholars and Asian Health Professions Organization. Peter started his work in research at UT Austin in the Freshman Research Initiative in the lab of Dr. Karen Browning. He remained in her lab from his very first year at UT. Peter worked with his research group to clone small subunits of translation initiation factor 3 in E. coli. These “biobricks” were then assembled into separate plasmid operons for optimization of co-expression of this important gene. In the words of Dr. Browning, Peter became “a master at DNA amplification, cloning, plasmid purification” and many other essential research tools that an average student would not have been exposed to until well into graduate school. Browning, after having worked with Peter for most of his academic career classified him as “among the very best students I have encountered at UT.” Peter’s academic passion was neurobiology. He originally chose to go into research because his grandmother suffers from macular degeneration, and he hoped that his work would help those living with such diseases. He was accepted to five medical schools and two MD-PhD programs. He had chosen to attend the program at The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Sadly, Peter passed away earlier this spring as he was completing his work at UT Austin. His parents are accepting Peter’s degree posthumously. Peter loved the University of Texas and the College. But most of all, he loved his family—in preparing for Honor’s Day earlier this year, when asked his greatest accomplishment while at UT, he said it was to make his parents proud.

Nine vials of a drug used to make ET473, Friesen’s treatment, are pulled from the freezer and put in a plastic basket with the formula’s other components. Pharmacy tech Pam Pavuk grabs the basket along with a thick binder containing instructions on how to prepare ET473. Because this drug is part of a study, she must complete inventory paperwork. This takes about 15 minutes—just long enough to allow the vials to defrost.