Stanford Grad Student 'Superstar' Dies In Mountain-Climbing Accident

PALO ALTO, CA – A Stanford University graduate student lost her life on Sunday, as she was mountain climbing in Inyo County in the Sierra Nevada, university officials said Wednesday.

Maria Birukova, a fourth-year graduate student in a dual medical and doctorate degree program, fell Sunday evening as she and a partner were ascending Bear Creek Spire. She was 26.

Birukova, an avid mountaineer and climber, earned a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering at Yale University. She came to Stanford in 2013 and was working in the laboratory of immunologist Paul Bollyky, MD, PhD. Earlier this year she was awarded a Bio-X Bowes graduate student fellowship in honor of her groundbreaking interdisciplinary research.

She was an avid mountaineer and climber who had trouble deciding whether to go to Stanford or the University of Utah for graduate training.

“Maria was one of our superstars,” said professor of medicine PJ Utz, MD, who directs Stanford’s Medical Scientist Training Program in which students work toward both a medical degree and a doctoral degree. “She had a background in engineering and an interest in chemistry, and we were very excited to welcome her into our program. But it was clear from the moment I met her that climbing was a major part of her life. In fact, she struggled to choose whether to attend Stanford or the University of Utah for her graduate training because in Utah the mountains are so close. We in the program are devastated that she won’t now be able to fulfill her other dream of becoming a physician-scientist.”

Birukova was born on May 31, 1990, in Moscow, Russia and attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools in Chicago, which educate students from nursery school through high school.

At Stanford, Birukova was working on research on the role played by the bacteriophage virus in the formation of biofilms. Biofilms are viscous communities of bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics and immune
responses.

Birukova was helping to design polymers and antibodies to disrupt biofilms so that patients with deadly infections could be treated.

"The medical school community has suffered a tremendous loss," dean of the school of medicine Dr. Lloyd Minor said. "Maria's interdisciplinary approach to the treatment of antibiotic-resistant biofilms brought to bear insights from both chemistry and immunology in an attempt to devise new treatments for patients with few other options."

Birukova was climbing with a partner when she fell 800 to 1,000 feet, Inyo County sheriff's officials said. Her partner climbed down to where she was and found she was dead, according to sheriff's officials.

Her body was recovered Tuesday.

Birukova is survived by her parents Dr. Konstantin Birukov and Dr. Anna Birukova. Both work at the University of Chicago.

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--Bay City News and Stanford News contributed to this report/Photo courtesy of Stanford News