A new feature from Yale School of Medicine profiles department chair Ronald Breaker, PhD, tracing his path from a Wisconsin dairy farm to Sterling Professor and HHMI Investigator. The piece covers his foundational discovery of riboswitches, RNA devices that sense molecules and control genes, and his lab’s recent identification of guanidine-sensing RNAs in vertebrates, including humans, which may explain guanidine’s long-observed but poorly understood effects on neuromuscular function and its potential role in conditions like spinocerebellar ataxia.
The profile also touches on Breaker’s approach to basic science research and his longstanding conviction that ancient RNA mechanisms, first studied in bacteria, would ultimately prove relevant to human biology.