Our research focuses on RNA polymerase, the central enzyme of gene expression in all free-living organisms. Our goal is to understand how RNA polymerase is regulated during the process of transcription (RNA synthesis). In organisms from bacteria to humans, the cell's ability to make long RNA chains, which include most mRNAs and some structural RNAs (e.g., rRNA), requires that extrinsic elongation regulators interact with RNA polymerase to suppress its innate tendency to fall into inactive off-line states that include long pauses, arrest, or termination. We seek to understand the fundamental properties of RNA polymerase that make it susceptible to pausing, arrest, or termination and how elongation regulators alter these properties. Additional research foci are the production of recombinant RNA polymerases from diverse bacterial lineages for antibiotic discovery and mechanistic dissection and the use of microbial synthetic biology for bioenergy applications.

• Microbiology 726: Regulation of Gene Expression in Prokaryotes

• Chair, Molecular and Microbial Genome Biology Focus Group, CMB Training Program
• Liaison to Campus & Grad. School, Molecular Biosciences Graduate Training Program
• Chair, Steering Committee for the NIH EcoliHub project
• Director of Microbial Synthetic Biology, Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center
• Affiliate, Genome Center of Wisconsin