Brenda L. Bass

Brenda L. Bass is a Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Utah who holds the H.A. and Edna Benning Endowed Chair. She is also an adjunct professor of human genetics and an investigator at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. Her research focuses on RNA silencing and the cellular dynamics of double-stranded RNA. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2015.

Academic career and research Bass joined the faculty at the University of Utah in 1989. She was named a Distinguished Professor in 2007 and given the H. A. and Edna Benning Chair in 2009. Some of her work on RNA interference was the subject of an inventorship dispute initiated by the University of Utah involving patents by Thomas Tuschl licensed to Alnylam; the lawsuit was not successful.

Bass was an attendee at early meetings at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory that gave rise to the RNA Society, a scientific society for RNA researchers. The society publishes the journal RNA, on whose editorial board Bass has served since 1995. She also served as president of the society in 2007. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007,