Ronald R. Breaker,

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

(born 1964) is a Sterling Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

. He is best known for the discovery of riboswitches. His current research is focused on understanding advanced functions of nucleic acids, including the discovery and analysis of

riboswitches In molecular biology, a riboswitch is a regulatory segment of a messenger RNA molecule that binds a small molecule, resulting in a change in production of the proteins encoded by the mRNA. Thus, an mRNA that contains a riboswitch is directly inv ...

and

ribozymes Ribozymes (ribonucleic acid enzymes) are RNA molecules that have the ability to catalyze specific biochemical reactions, including RNA splicing in gene expression, similar to the action of protein enzymes. The 1982 discovery of ribozymes demons ...

Research

Ronald earned his

B.S. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...

Biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

and Chemistry from the

University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point The University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point (UW–Stevens Point or UWSP) is a public university in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Established in 1894, it is part of the University of Wisconsin System. UW-Stevens Point grants associate, baccalaureat ...

and his Ph.D. in

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

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and mone ...

with Peter T Gilham. He was a postdoctoral fellow at The Scripps Research Institute with Gerald Joyce. While at Scripps, he isolated the first DNA enzyme ( deoxyribozyme). He joined the molecular, cellular, and developmental biology department at Yale University. His research group worked on in vitro engineered riboswitches, RNA biosensors, and began to look for riboswitches in nature and identified the Cobalamin riboswitch. Over the next decade, the group would perform pivotal work establishing the role of ligand-binding RNAs and resulted in the discovery of multiple classes of riboswitches. He has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator since 2005. Breaker is a member of the JASON defense advisory group, and was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2013.

Awards

AAAS Fellow Fellowship of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (FAAAS) is an honor accorded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to distinguished persons who are members of the Association. Fellows are electe ...

, 2004 *

American Society for Microbiology The American Society for Microbiology (ASM), originally the Society of American Bacteriologists, is a professional organization for scientists who study viruses, bacteria, fungi, algae, and protozoa as well as other aspects of microbiology. It wa ...

Eli Lilly Award, 2005 * NAS Award in Molecular Biology, 2006 *Rolf Sammet Professorship, Goethe University Frankfurt, 2012 *Distinguished Alumni Award, University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point, 2010 *U.S. National Academy of Sciences, 2013 *Distinguished Alumni Award, Purdue University, 2014 * ASBMB–Merck Award, 2016

References

External links

Academic BioBreaker Lab website
Living people American biochemists Howard Hughes Medical Investigators Purdue University alumni University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point alumni Yale Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology faculty Place of birth missing (living people) Scripps Research alumni Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Members of JASON (advisory group) 1964 births Yale Sterling Professors {{US-biochemist-stub