Residence Bethesda, Maryland Name Susan Gottesman | Thesis 1972 | |
![]() | ||
Born 19 May 1945 (age 79) New York, New York ( 1945-05-19 ) Known for Bacterial small RNAsProteases and their function in ATP-hydrolysis.Discovered central features of new family of proteases requiring energy for their function in the form of ATP-hydrolysis. Fields Genetics, Department of Plant and Microbial Biology |
Susan Gottesman is microbiologist at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She is a pioneer in the area of biological regulation in which enzymes that destroy specific other proteins, called proteases, play a central role inside the cell. In groundbreaking work, she discovered and elucidated the central features of a whole new family of proteases that require energy for their function in the form of ATP-hydrolysis. She has also played a major role in the discovery and characterization of bacterial small RNAs.
Contents
Life
She was born on May 19, 1945, in New York. Her father was trained as an accountant and ran a company that made rotisseries and other small appliances. Her mother was a high school teacher and later became a guidance counselor.
Dr. Gottesman received a B.A. in biochemical sciences, in 1967, from Radcliffe College, and a Ph.D. in microbiology from Harvard University, in 1972. She did her postdoctoral training from 1971 to 1974 in NCI's Laboratory of Molecular Biology. From 1974 to 1976, she was a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, before returning as a senior investigator to NCI’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Today she is co-chief of that Laboratory and head of its Biochemical Genetics Section.