Jeffrey Roberts papers

Jeffrey Roberts, Robert J. Appel Professor Emeritus in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cornell University (1944, February 16) was born in Flint, Michigan, U.S.A. In 1964, he earned his B.S. in Physics from the University of Texas. Six years later (1970), he completed his doctorate in Biophysics from Harvard University, focusing on Molecular Biology. During his post-doctoral studies, he served as a Junior (1971-1973) and Research (1973-1974) Fellow in Biochemistry at Harvard Society of Fellows.

His research focused on biochemical mechanisms controlling gene expression, particularly those that determine the ability of RNA polymerase to transcribe particular genes; the activity of transcription antiterminators, regulatory proteins that affect the ability of RNA polymerase to recognize transcription terminators and the nature of promoter recognition by initiation factors, in particular the mechanism by which sigma factors recognize and mediate melting of promoter sequences. He has been recognized for his distinguished service as an Editorial Board member of the Journal of Bacteriology from the American Society for Microbiology and the Microbial Physiology and Genetics Study Section 2 (1991-1995) from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health. He has been Chair of the American Society of Microbiology (Division M, 1990-1991) and the Molecular Biology and Genetics department at Cornell University (1986-1990).