Ronald C. Conaway

Dr. Ron Conaway is an Investigator at Stowers Medical Institute. Almost three decades ago Conaway and his now-wife, Dr. Joan Conaway, teamed up to carry out the kind of column-packing, rotor-toting, get-dirty biochemistry that finds you in the lab at 2 in the morning. Their reward was no less than a body of work defining how the enzyme RNA polymerase II (pol II) catalyzes transcription of mRNA, the fundamental requirement for gene expression. The two continued to work together to identify key transcription factors involved in gene expression, eventually creating a system capable of initiating transcription in vitro with pure proteins – a feat hailed by Nature as a “milestone of gene expression.” Over the past twenty years, the two have shifted their research include evaluation of proteins that increase the rate at which mRNA strands elongate – an area of basic research with critical implications for understanding processes that can lead to cancer. Their research continues to focus on uncovering the identity and role of transcriptional regulatory proteins, which have roles in transcription initiation, elongation, and chromatin remodeling. The Conaways received the ASBMB-Amgen Award in recognition of their joint efforts, and Ron Conaway is also the recipient of the Edward L. and Thelma Gaylord Award for Scientific Merit. Their publications appear in prominent journals including Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United Stated of America, and Science.