Lynne Regan is a Professor of

Biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

and

Biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used b ...

at the School of Biological Sciences at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

. Previously, she was a Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

. She was the president of the

Protein Society The Protein Society is an international, not-for-profit, scholarly society with the mission to provide forums for the advancement of research into protein structure, function, design and applications. History It was founded in 1986, with the lea ...

for the 2013–2014 term and has earned many awards throughout her career. Her research mainly concerns interactions between proteins and nucleic acids.

Education

In 1981, Regan graduated with a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

from University of Oxford. She was awarded the Gibbs prize for the top first class honor of her year and obtained a distinction in Clinical Pharmacology. She went on to study at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

under

Paul Schimmel Paul Reinhard Schimmel (born August 4, 1940) is an American biophysical chemist and translational medicine pioneer. Career Paul Schimmel is a Professor of Molecular Medicine at The Scripps Research Institute. Prior to joining The Scripps Resear ...

with a

Fulbright Scholarship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

, and earned her PhD there in 1987.

Career and research

Regan began her career as a professor with an assistant position in Yale's Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry in 2000; she became a full professor in 1998. In 2000, she became a professor in the Department of Chemistry. The

National Institute of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late 1 ...

awarded her a 2-year

Shannon Grant Shannon Grant (born 19 April 1977) is a former Australian rules footballer who was a midfielder in the AFL. He began his career at the Sydney Swans in 1995 before moving to the Kangaroos in 1998 and being a part of their 1999 premiership side ...

in 1992 for work on small model proteins. From 1992 to 1997, Regan was also a National Young Investigator for the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

; she used the ''

E. coli ''Escherichia coli'' (),Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. also known as ''E. coli'' (), is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus ''Escher ...

'' protein Rop to research interactions between

alpha helices The alpha helix (α-helix) is a common motif in the secondary structure of proteins and is a right hand-helix conformation in which every backbone N−H group hydrogen bonds to the backbone C=O group of the amino acid located four residues ear ...

as well as

RNA Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a polymeric molecule essential in various biological roles in coding, decoding, regulation and expression of genes. RNA and deoxyribonucleic acid ( DNA) are nucleic acids. Along with lipids, proteins, and carbohydra ...

recognition of the protein and its connecting loops. Her studies of newly synthesized anti-cancer compounds led to a one-year

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 2005. In 2008, she became the first director of Yale's Raymond and Beverly Sackler Institute for Biological, Physical and Engineering Sciences.

Honors

The

Biophysical Society The Biophysical Society is an international scientific society whose purpose is to lead the development and dissemination of knowledge in biophysics. Founded in 1958, the Society currently consists of over 7,500 members in academia, government, an ...

awarded Regan the Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award for 1995–1996, an award established in 1984 and given to women early in their careers who have made significant contributions to

biophysics Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations. ...

. In 2009, Regan was elected to the

Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering The Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering is a non-profit institution patterned after the National Academy of Sciences to identify and study issues and technological advancements that are or should be of concern to the state of Connecticut ...

. Regan was elected the president of the

for the 2013–2014 term.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Regan, Lynne Living people 20th-century British biologists 21st-century British biologists Alumni of the University of Oxford British biophysicists British biochemists British women biologists British women chemists British women physicists Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Yale University faculty Year of birth missing (living people)