Robert Birge has won the 2009 Connecticut Medal of Science, the state’s highest award for scientists.

Birge holds the Harold S. Schwenk Chair in Chemistry. He is known for his basic research on protein structure and function and in biomolecular electronics, yielding breakthroughs that have led to technological developments. He has used a protein from an archaea, a bacteria-like organism, to make artificial retinas, for example, and was the first scientist to propose using proteins to store data. He also has pioneered the use of many methods to study biological molecules. His current research on vision concerns the deep red pigments in the cone, or color-sensing part, of the retina.