Timothy M. Lohman, PhD

Timothy M. Lohman, PhD, the Brennecke Professor of Biophysics in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, is being honored for his fundamental studies of the thermodynamics and kinetic mechanisms of interactions between proteins and DNA, particularly SSB proteins and helicase enzymes that unwind the DNA double helix.

Lohman is a world expert in the study of DNA helicases, which are motor proteins that unwind double-stranded DNA to form its single-stranded state. This process is fundamental to cell duplication and survival, representing one of the first steps in replication of the genome. It is also critical to the repair of DNA damage, an important cause of cancers. Lohman’s lab has developed many of the transient kinetic methods used to probe these proteins mechanistically. Lohman’s research continues to probe the mechanisms and regulation of DNA helicases and SSB proteins using both ensemble and single-molecule approaches.

Lohman is an outstanding educator at the graduate and postdoctoral levels, having served as director of the Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry graduate programs. He also has been course master of the first-year graduate student course Macromolecular Interactions for more than 20 years. Lohman is also a trusted mentor and advisor to many junior and senior faculty members.

He is has been honored as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and fellow of the Biophysical Society and serves on the editorial boards of several scientific journals.

Lohman received his bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in 1973 and his doctoral degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1977. He was a National Institutes of Health (NIH) postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Diego and the University of Oregon. He joined the Washington University faculty in 1990 after nine years on the faculty of Texas A&M University.