Scott Keeney PhD

Scott Keeney is a geneticist and molecular biologist recognized for his work on homologous recombination during meiosis. He is known particularly for his discovery of Spo11 as the protein that makes the DNA double-strand breaks that initiate recombination. His studies of Spo11 and its regulation have elucidated how cells ensure genome integrity during sexual reproduction. Keeney was born in Baltimore, Maryland, where he attended the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute.

He graduated in 1987 from Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, with a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry, and in 1993 from the University of California at Berkeley with a PhD in biochemistry under the mentorship of Prof. Stuart Linn. He was a postdoctoral fellow in biochemistry with Nancy Kleckner at Harvard University. He has been a member of the faculty in the Molecular Biology Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center since 1997, and an investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 2008. He is a member of the American Academy of Microbiology, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences.