Thomas A Steitz PhD

Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and Professor of Chemistry; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

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Departments & Organizations

Biological and Biomedical Sciences (BBS): Biochemistry, Biophysics and Structural Biology: DNA Dynamics; Drug Design, Discovery and Mechanism; RNA Catalysis and Ribonucleoprotein Machines; Transcriptional Regulation

Structural Biology

Global Health Initiative: Infectious Diseases | Tuberculosis

Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry: Cell Cycle and Transcriptional Regulation | DNA Replication and Repair | RNA Biology | Structural Biology

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Biography

Prof. Thomas Steitz received a B.A. degree in chemistry from Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisconsin, and a Ph.D. degree in molecular biology and biochemistry from Harvard, with William Lipscomb. After a postdoctoral year at Harvard, he moved to the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, to work as a Jane Coffin Childs fellow with David Blow. He next joined the Yale faculty, where he has remained, except for sabbatical work with Klaus Weber in Göttingen, Germany; Aaron Klug at Cambridge; John Abelson at the California Institute of Technology; and Thomas Cech and Olke Uhlenbeck at the University of Colorado. He has received the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the Pfizer Prize from the American Chemical Society, the Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for distinguished work in basic medical sciences, the 2001 Newcomb Cleveland Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Lawrence University Lucia R. Briggs Distinguished Achievement Award, the 2006 Keio Medical Science Prize, and the 2007 Gairdner International Award. Dr. Steitz is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was recently elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.