Hashim Al-Hashimi, PhD, assumed the role as director for the Center for RNA Biology, effective September 1, 2014. Dr. Al-Hashimi replaces Mariano Garcia-Blanco, MD, PhD, who is leaving Duke after more than two decades to become chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biologyat the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.
Dr. Al-Hashimi is a professor in the Department of Biochemistry with a secondary appointment as professor in the Department of Chemistry. He received his doctorate in Biophysical Chemistry from Yale University for research on the development of residual dipolar coupling NMR methods to study the structure and dynamics of proteins. Dr. Al-Hashimi spent 11 years at the University of Michigan as assistant professor, associate professor, Robert L Kuczkowski Professor, and J. Lawrence Oncley Collegiate Professor of Chemistry and Biophysics in the Department of Chemistry and Biophysics Research Division before joining Duke in January 2014. His research focuses on the development and application of NMR and computational methods to visualize nucleic acid dynamics at atomic resolution.
The Center for RNA Biology, housed in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, brings together laboratories focused on RNA biology including the study of RNA binding proteins, RNA-based therapies, post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression, non-coding RNAs and RNA interference (RNAi), ribozyme function, and RNA viruses. The center laboratories are located at Duke and the National Institute of Environmental Health Science. In addition, the center coordinates activities with RNA colleagues from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University.