Ronald Breaker

Ronald R. Breaker (born 1964) is an American biochemist who has been a Sterling Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale University since 1995. He is best known for the discovery of riboswitches, a common RNA regulatory element. His current research is focused on understanding advanced functions of nucleic acids, including the discovery and analysis of riboswitches and ribozymes.

Research Ronald earned his B.S. in biology and chemistry from the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Purdue University 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 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 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2004 American Society for Microbiology 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