Richard H. Ebright


Richard H. Ebright is an American molecular biologist. He is the Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University and Laboratory Director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology.

Early life and education

Richard H. Ebright was born on 11 June 1959 to Richard Jerome Ebright and Jacqueline Katherine Ebright. His father died when he was in third grade. He grew up north of Reading, Pennsylvania.
Ebright received an A.B. summa cum laude in biology from Harvard University in 1981 and a Ph.D. in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from Harvard University in 1987. He was a Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows from 1984 to 1987.

Career

Ebright was appointed as a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry at Rutgers University and as a Laboratory Director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology in 1987. He was co-appointed as an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute from 1997 to 2013.
Ebright has performed research on protein-DNA interaction, transcription initiation, transcription activation, and antibacterial drug discovery. Ebright's research results include the experimental demonstration that amino-acid-base contacts mediate DNA sequence recognition in protein–DNA interaction, the determination of the three-dimensional structural organization of the transcription initiation complex; the demonstration that initial transcription involves a "DNA scrunching" mechanism; the demonstration that transcription activation can proceed by a "recruitment" mechanism; and the identification of novel antibacterial drug targets in bacterial RNA polymerase.
In 1994 Ebright was awarded the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Schering-Plough Award for his research on transcription activation. In 1995 he received the Academic Press Walter J. Johnson Prize. In 2013 he received a National Institutes of Health MERIT Award. He was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 1996, the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2004, the Infectious Diseases Society of America in 2011, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016.
Ebright has opposed the proliferation of laboratories working on biological weapons agents and has supported the strengthening of biosafety and biosecurity measures to reduce risks of release of biological weapons.