A Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences professor will become the first Northwestern scientist to receive the prestigious MacArthur “genius” grant.

Amy Rosenzweig, an associate professor of biochemistry who earned her doctorate in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will be awarded $500,000 over the next five years by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Though most grants are given to universities for specific projects, the MacArthur Foundation allows its recipients to spend the grants however they see fit.

No one can apply for a MacArthur fellowship — the nomination and selection process is completely anonymous. Winners do not even know they are being considered for a fellowship until a week before the award is given.

“I’m totally flattered and totally appreciative of whoever did this,” Rosenzweig said.

Weinberg Dean Daniel Linzer said Rosenzweig has been very modest about her achievement and called her “an incredibly dynamic scholar.”

Rosenzweig said she also is grateful to the many researchers who have collaborated with her in the lab.

“That’s how good science is done,” she said.

Since she was a student at Amherst College, Rosenzweig has investigated the roles of metals in living cells. Metals like copper, iron and zinc are key to many biological processes but also can damage the body if they behave in unexpected ways.

“The same properties that make them useful also make them dangerous,” Rosenzweig said.

Aberrant metal behavior has been identified as a critical factor in Menke’s syndrome and Wilson disease, and may contribute to Alzheimer’s and prion diseases.

Rosenzweig’s discoveries about how proteins use metals could also be used to duplicate those processes synthetically.

For instance, some bacteria use copper to convert methane gas into liquid methanol. Methanol is safer to store and transport than methane, so it would be useful to know how to carry out the same process in an industrial setting.

“It’s not like you can take a protein, pry it open and stick a metal in,” Linzer said. “It’s like a ship in a bottle. You see it’s there, but how do you do it?”

Rosenzweig said she might use some of the award money to buy equipment for her research.

Her main wish, however, is high quality child care for her 2-year-old daughter.

“I’m still going to go home from work and change diapers and play Teletubbies,” she said.

If she had to spend the money frivolously, Rosenzweig said, she would replace her used Ford Contour and eat more sushi.

MacArthur Fellowships have been awarded to artists, scholars, scientists and other creative individuals since 1981.

This year’s 24 new Macarthur Fellows include a blacksmith who explores the expressive qualities of metals, an author of experimental short stories and a gerontological nurse studying how to improve care for elderly cancer patients.

NU’s only other MacArthur Fellow, Tony-award-winning director and performance studies Prof. Mary Zimmerman, urged Rosenzweig to make the most out of enjoying the grant money.

Before spending some money on research trips and depositing the rest in her bank account, Zimmerman threw a party for her collaborators.

Zimmerman, who won the prize in 1998, recently received her last quarterly check.

Still she said the recognition that comes with being a fellow continues to follow her like “an invisible bodyguard.”

“All your friends tease you for the rest of your life about being a genius,” she said.