Richard High Ebright is an American

molecular biologist Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and physi ...

. He is the Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

and Laboratory Director at the

Waksman Institute of Microbiology The Waksman Institute of Microbiology is a research facility on the Busch Campus of Rutgers University. It is named after Selman Waksman, a student and then faculty member at Rutgers who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1952 for research which l ...

Early life and education

Ebright received an

A.B. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

'' in biology from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1981 and a PhD in microbiology and molecular genetics from

in 1987. He was a junior fellow of the

Harvard Society of Fellows The Society of Fellows is a group of scholars selected at the beginnings of their careers by Harvard University for their potential to advance academic wisdom, upon whom are bestowed distinctive opportunities to foster their individual and intell ...

from 1984 to 1987.

Career

Ebright was appointed as a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry at

and as a Laboratory Director at the

in 1987. He was co-appointed as an Investigator of the

Howard Hughes Medical Institute The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American business magnate, investor, record-setting pilot, engineer, fil ...

from 1997 to 2013. Ebright's research has included the experimental demonstration that amino-acid-base contacts mediate DNA sequence recognition in

protein-DNA interaction DNA-binding proteins are proteins that have DNA-binding domains and thus have a specific or general affinity for single- or double-stranded DNA. Sequence-specific DNA-binding proteins generally interact with the major groove of B-DNA, becaus ...

, the determination of the three-dimensional structural organization of the transcription initiation complex; the demonstration that transcription start-site selection and initial transcription involve "

DNA scrunching Abortive initiation, also known as abortive transcription, is an early process of Transcription (genetics), genetic transcription in which RNA polymerase binds to a Promoter (genetics), DNA promoter and enters into cycles of synthesis of short Messe ...

", the demonstration that transcription activation can proceed by a "recruitment" mechanism, the demonstration that bacterial

transcription-translation coupling Transcription-translation coupling is a mechanism of regulation of gene expression, gene expression regulation in which synthesis of an mRNA (transcription (biology), transcription) is affected by its concurrent decoding (translation (biology), tra ...

involves direct physical bridging of

RNA polymerase In molecular biology, RNA polymerase (abbreviated RNAP or RNApol), or more specifically DNA-directed/dependent RNA polymerase (DdRP), is an enzyme that synthesizes RNA from a DNA template. Using the enzyme helicase, RNAP locally opens the ...

and a

ribosome Ribosomes ( ) are macromolecular machines, found within all cells, that perform biological protein synthesis (mRNA translation). Ribosomes link amino acids together in the order specified by the codons of messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules to ...

by NusA and NusG, the demonstration that bacterial Rho-dependent transcription termination involves the molecular-motor activity of the termination factor

Rho Rho (uppercase Ρ, lowercase ρ or ; el, ρο or el, ρω, label=none) is the 17th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 100. It is derived from Phoenician letter res . Its uppercase form uses the sa ...

, and the identification of novel antibacterial drug targets in bacterial RNA polymerase. In 1994, Ebright was awarded the

American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) is a learned society that was founded on December 26, 1906, at a meeting organized by John Jacob Abel (Johns Hopkins University). The roots of the society were in the American Phy ...

Schering-Plough Award for his research on transcription activation. In 1995, he received the Academic Press Walter J. Johnson Prize. In 2013, he received a National Institutes of Health MERIT Award. He was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 1996, the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2004, the Infectious Diseases Society of America in 2011, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016. He is the subject of a piece named "The Making of a Scientist" in a high school textbook published by

NCERT The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is an autonomous organisation of the Government of India which was established in 1961 as a literary, scientific and charitable Society under the Societies Registration Act. Its head ...

(and recommended by the CBSE) in India. He has opposed the proliferation of laboratories working on

biological weapons A biological agent (also called bio-agent, biological threat agent, biological warfare agent, biological weapon, or bioweapon) is a bacterium, virus, protozoan, parasite, fungus, or toxin that can be used purposefully as a weapon in bioterrorism ...

agents and has supported the strengthening of

biosafety Biosafety is the prevention of large-scale loss of biological integrity, focusing both on ecology and human health. These prevention mechanisms include conduction of regular reviews of the biosafety in laboratory settings, as well as strict guidel ...

and

biosecurity Biosecurity refers to measures aimed at preventing the introduction and/or spread of harmful organisms (e.g. viruses, bacteria, etc.) to animals and plants in order to minimize the risk of transmission of infectious disease. In agriculture, thes ...

measures to reduce risks of release of

COVID-19 origins

Ebright has stated that the genome and properties of

SARS-CoV-2 Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) is a strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019), the respiratory illness responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The virus previously had a ...

provide no basis to conclude the virus was engineered as a bioweapon, but he also has stated that the possibility that the virus entered humans through a laboratory accident cannot be dismissed and has called for a thorough investigation of the origin of the pandemic and for measures to reduce the risk of future pandemics. Ebright has accused

NIAID The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID, ) is one of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). NIAID's ...

director

Anthony Fauci Anthony Stephen Fauci (; born December 24, 1940) is an American physician-scientist and immunologist serving as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the chief medical advisor to the president. ...

NIH 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 ...

director

Francis Collins Francis Sellers Collins (born April 14, 1950) is an American physician-geneticist who discovered the genes associated with a number of diseases and led the Human Genome Project. He is the former director of the National Institutes of Health ( ...

and deputy director Lawrence Tabak of "lying to the public", about their past and continuing denials of

funding having been utilized for

gain-of-function Gain-of-function research (GoF research or GoFR) is medical research that genetically alters an organism in a way that may enhance the biological functions of gene products. This may include an altered pathogenesis, transmissibility, or host ran ...

experiments at the

Wuhan Institute of Virology The Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (WIV; ) is a research institute on virology administered by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), which reports to the State Council of the People's Republic of China. The institute ...

References

External links

Waksman Institute faculty webpage

Publications by Richard H. Ebright on Google Scholar
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ebright, Richard 21st-century American biochemists American biophysicists American geneticists American microbiologists American molecular biologists Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Howard Hughes Medical Investigators Rutgers University faculty Harvard College alumni Living people 1959 births Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni