Ronald R. Breaker BS, PhD

Dr. Breaker is the Henry Ford II Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Yale University. He is jointly appointed as a professor in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale, and is an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Breaker received his B.S. degree with a major in biology and a minor in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point. He conducted undergraduate research on mammalian hibernation with Dr. Kent Hall and on osteichthyes chromosome arrangements with Dr. William LeGrande. His Ph.D. thesis research was carried out with Dr. Peter Gilham at Purdue University and focused on the synthesis of RNA and the catalytic properties of nucleic acids. As a postdoctoral researcher with Dr. Gerald Joyce at The Scripps Research Institute, Dr. Breaker pioneered a variety of “test-tube evolution” strategies to isolate novel RNA enzymes and was the first to create catalytic DNAs or “deoxyribozymes” using this technology.