Ronald Breaker

Ronald R. Breaker ( * 1964 in Tigerton, Wisconsin) is an American molecular biologist at Yale University.

Life

Breaker acquired in 1987 from the University of Wisconsin- Stevens Point a bachelor's degree in biology and chemistry, and in 1992 Peter Gilham at Purdue University in West Lafayette (Indiana) a Ph.D. in biochemistry. As a postdoctoral fellow he worked with Gerald Joyce at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Since 1995 Breaker is at Yale University in New Haven ( Connecticut ), where he (as of 2012) is a professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology and professor of molecular biophysics today. In addition Breaker research for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Work

Breaker discovered with the riboswitch a mechanism in which metabolites by direct binding to the mRNA encoding the metabolic pathway they regulate their own synthesis. Riboswitche are thus potential targets of novel drugs and could regulate genes that were introduced by gene therapy in cells.

Breaker for the first time, the synthesis of an enzymatically active DNA, a so-called Deoxyribozym - the counterpart of an enzymatically active RNA is called ribozyme. Further research Breakers deal with other forms of non-coding RNA and the role of RNA in the evolution (see RNA world hypothesis ).

Awards (selection)

University of Wisconsin System Stevens Point, Wisconsin National Academy of Sciences
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