Tech trailblazers: the pioneers, past and present, of Utah's vibrant tech community.

By Utah Business editors

The tech sector has grown in fits and starts in Utah. Early successes like WordPerfect and Novell gave way to a period of simmering, slow development. The state produced many innovative ideas and businesses--but those were quickly sold or merged with out-of-state companies. Now Utah's self-styled Silicon Slopes has come into its own, garnering attention from Bay Area investors and tech talent from across the country. Here, we take a look at some of Utah's early tech pioneers, as well as the current crop of entrepreneurs who are strengthening and deepening the Beehive State's technology industry.

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MARIO CAPECCHI, PH.D.

Co-Chair, Department of Human Genetics

University of Utah

Utah's natural beauty helped attract Mario Capecchi from Harvard University, but the state's support for science and research has helped keep him here.

At the time he was recruited, Italian-born Capecchi had earned a Ph.D. from Harvard and was a professor of biochemistry at Harvard Medical School. The University of Utah was organizing a new department of biology that would emphasize excellence and collaboration, and tapped Capecchi to help build it. After several years of teaching, Capecchi shifted his focus to human genetics, drawn by its rich potential for research.

"I enjoyed teaching, and when I was doing biology, I was doing a lot of teaching at the expense of research," he says. "It's fun hearing about different areas [of biology], but it's fun to apply the things you've discovered to human pathology."

For the last 30 years, that research has predominantly focused on decoding the human genome--a puzzle for which there is no Rosetta Stone. But bit by bit, Capecchi and his namesake laboratory at the University of Utah are sorting out the genetic pieces. A massive breakthrough in the effort came with the development of "knockout mice," rodents created with genetic engineering and in vitro fertilization, which have had one gene, essentially, turned off. Seeing the effect of that change to its code helps researchers identify what the gene does, which can help them identify what a malfunctioning gene might do and even how to repair or mitigate the damage.

The work earned him a Nobel Prize in 2007, but has also paved the way for breakthroughs in medicine for some of the toughest patients out there.

"We've applied it to a lot of different things. Right now we're really interested in ... modeling cancers in children, which are very aggressive but not getting very much attention, so this allows us in this niche, essentially, where everything we find is new, and it applies to a significant part of the population, which is children," he says.

Cancer treatments in the next decade will likely look vastly different as more targeted approaches are developed, he says.

In addition, Capecchi is looking at another largely neglected sector of research, dealing with neuropsychiatric disorders and increasing medicine's understanding of the structure and workings of the brain.

"Right now, we're simply searching to see how to handle [these patients], because we don't understand how the brain works," he says. "Once we understand it, the cures will be much more rational...