Baltimore, Md. - Nobel laureate Thomas R. Cech, president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, will deliver the keynote address at UMBC's thirty-third commencement exercises. More than 1,000 bachelor's degrees will be awarded at the Baltimore Arena at 1 p.m. on May 25, 2000. More than 200 master's and 35 Ph.D. degrees will be awarded at the graduate commencement ceremony, to be held at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, May 24 in UMBC's Retriever Activities Center.

Cech received the 1989 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his ground-breaking research on RNA (ribonucleic acid) and currently serves as distinguished professor of chemistry at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he has mentored several UMBC Meyerhoff scholars.

Established in 1953, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute supports biomedical research through collaborative research agreements with more than 300 faculty investigators based at university campuses across the nation.

UMBC is the only public university in Maryland to host a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. Dr. Michael Summers, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry, conducts top-level research on the protein structure of the HIV virus.

Dr. Robert W. Deutsch, chairman and CEO of Columbia, Md. based RWD Technologies, will be awarded an honorary doctor of science degree.

Remarks will also be made by Class of 2000 valedictorian Steven P. Rowe, a biochemistry and molecular biology major from Rockville, Md. Rowe will attend the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in the fall to pursue an M.D./Ph.D. degree with an emphasis in medicinal chemistry.