Wendy V. Gilbert, PhD

Wendy Gilbert is an Associate Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry. Her work focuses on regulatory elements in messenger RNA that control the cellular expression of the information stored in the genetic code. She earned her PhD at UCSF with Christine Guthrie, studying mRNA export and being fascinated by the exquisite mechanisms that couple export-competence to completion of RNA processing. As a postdoc in Jennifer Doudna’s lab at UC Berkeley, she uncovered a non-canonical mechanism of translation initiation. She started her lab at MIT in 2008 and joined the faculty at Yale in 2017. Her lab’s current work ranges widely across RNA biology with the unifying theme of elucidating the molecular mechanisms of RNA regulatory elements controlling mRNA biogenesis, translation and decay. Most recently, this has been in the area of RNA base modification. She was recognized with the RNA Society’s Early Career Award in 2017 for her “paradigm-altering contributions to the field of post-transcriptional gene regulation.”