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Ph.D. in Biology, Harvard University 1976
American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Chicago 1977-78
Faculty member, University of Chicago 1978-2000
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute 1988-2001
Director, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research 2001-2004
Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1996
Member, National Academy of Sciences 1997
Fellow, American Academy of Microbiology 1997
Novartis-Drew Award in Biomedical Research 2000
Dickson Prize in Medicine 2003
Widely known for her groundbreaking work on how changes in protein conformation affect processes such as stress tolerance, neurodegenerative disease and heredity, her work on proteins - the "building blocks" and "workhorses" of life - has given us compelling new insights into genetics, evolution and disease. She ignites collaborations of physicists, chemists and engineers and employs organisms as diverse as yeast, fruit flies, plants and humans.
Research in her laboratory has provided critical support to a new genetic theory wherein biological changes are passed from generation to generation through self-perpetuating assemblies of proteins rather than through changes in DNA and RNA. This discovery, and the realization that protein folding problems are shared among all organisms, is providing a framework for understanding several biological mysteries,including the nature of epigenetic inheritance and the origins and pathologies of Parkinson's and mad cow disease.
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