Joan A. Steitz
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| Dr. Joan Steitz is a pioneer in the study of ribonucleic acid (RNA) and one of the most distinguished molecular biologists of our time. She is known for discovering and defining the function of small nuclear ribonucleoproteins (snRNPs) which are critical for carrying out all of life’s basic processes and in treating such autoimmune diseases as lupus. Indisputably, Joan is considered the most famous contributor to the world of small RNA and RNP particles. Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota on January 26, 1941, Joan Argertsinger Steitz was always interested in science. She graduated from an all-girls high school and went on to graduate from Antioch College, Ohio, with a BS in Chemistry. She was accepted to Harvard Medical School but after a summer job in a laboratory at the University of Minnesota under the supervision of cell biologist Joseph Gall, she applied to Harvard's new program in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Joan was the sole woman in a class of 10 to matriculate in Harvard's graduate program and the first female graduate student to join the laboratory of James D. Watson with whom she first worked on RNA structure. At Harvard, Joan also met classmate X-ray crystallographer Thomas Steitz. The couple married in 1966 and, after finishing their doctorates, moved in 1967 from Cambridge, MA, to Cambridge, UK, for postdoctoral work at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology. There, she made her first mark as an independent investigator by locating three translation “start points” on bacteriophage mRNA. In 1970, both Joan and her husband were offered positions at Yale and Joan joined the department of molecular biophysics and biochemistry, first as an assistant professor and later as an associate and full professor. In New Haven, Joan began her groundbreaking and now famous research on the function of small nuclear ribonucleoproteins (snRNPS) in pre-mRNA splicing. In addition to being one of the first two women scientists to be named recipients of the 2008 Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research, America’s largest prize in medicine, Joan Steitz , Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale, has been honored by many awards including the Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry (1976), the U.S. Steel Foundation Award in Molecular Biology (1982), membership in the Nation Academy of Sciences (1983), the National Medal of Science (1986), the Novartis-Drew Award in Biomedical research (1999), the FASEB Excellence in Science Award (2003) the RNA Society Lifetime Achievement Award (2004), the ASCB’s highest scientific honor, the E.B. Wilson Medal (2005), the National Cancer Institute’s Rosalind E. Franklin Award for Women in Science, National Cancer Institute (2006), the Gairdner International Prize (2006) and 11 honorary doctorates. | |||||||||||
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