Rhiju Das (born 1978 in Houston, Texas) is a computational biochemist and an associate professor of biochemistry and physics at Stanford University. Research in his lab seeks a predictive understanding of how RNA molecules and their complexes form molecular machines fundamental to life.

Education

Das was trained as a physicist before switching to biochemistry. His undergraduate education was at Harvard, in physics, followed by master's research as a

Marshall scholar The Marshall Scholarship is a postgraduate scholarship for "intellectually distinguished young Americans ndtheir country's future leaders" to study at any university in the United Kingdom. It is widely considered one of the most prestigious sc ...

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III of England, Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world' ...

and

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

in experimental cosmology and molecular phylogenetics. He completed his Ph.D. in physics at Stanford University, supervised by

Sebastian Doniach Sebastian Doniach (born 1934, in Paris, France) is a British- American physicist and professor at Stanford University. His research interests include theoretical condensed matter physics, superconductivity, and biophysics. Family His mother w ...

and Daniel Herschlag.

Career

Das was a

Damon Runyon Alfred Damon Runyon (October 4, 1880 – December 10, 1946) was an American newspaperman and short-story writer. He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era. To N ...

postdoctoral fellow working on protein structure prediction with David Baker at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...

. He joined Stanford’s biochemistry department in 2009 and was promoted with tenure in 2016. He was selected to be a Howard Hughes investigator in 2021.

Research

Das develops methods to simulate and computationally design RNA molecules as well as experimental methods to infer RNA structure from multidimensional chemical mapping measurements. Integrating these efforts, Das directs the

EteRNA Eterna is a Swiss luxury watch company founded in Grenchen, Canton Solothurn, on 7 November 1856 by Josef Girard and Urs Schild. The company is now owned by Hong Kong-based Citychamp Watch & Jewellery Group Limited, an investment holding co ...

massive open laboratory, which integrates an internet-scale videogame with massively parallel experimental and machine learning. The project aims to empower citizen scientists to invent medicine. In 2020, Das and his staff used the EteRNA platform to investigate potentially shelf-stable

RNA vaccines An mRNA vaccine is a type of vaccine that uses a copy of a molecule called messenger RNA (mRNA) to produce an immune response. The vaccine delivers molecules of antigen-encoding mRNA into immune cells, which use the designed mRNA as a blueprin ...

for

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. An interview with Das about this work was featured in an episode of ''Nova'', " Decoding COVID-19", in May 2020.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Das, Rhiju American biochemists Living people 1978 births Stanford University faculty Stanford University alumni Harvard University alumni Marshall Scholars