UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Katsuhiko Murakami, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in the Penn State Eberly College of Science, has been named the Stanley Person Professor of Molecular Biology.
The Person Professorship was established in 1994 to honor Person’s contributions to the University. Person was a professor of biophysics and molecular biology where he researched the mechanisms of DNA mutations and how DNA is translated into proteins. His work also examined the structure and function of biological membranes, eventually using herpes simplex virus as a model to advance viral genetics.
“I would like to express my sincere gratitude for the honor of being appointed to the Stanley Person Professorship of Molecular Biology,” Murakami said. “It is particularly meaningful to me to hold a professorship named after Person, whose pioneering work advanced our understanding of DNA damage and virus-host interactions. I am honored to continue that legacy.”
Murakami’s research focuses on gene expression — how and when genes, encoded in DNA, are turned on or off in cells — to understand cell development and diseases. Specifically, he is interested in the cellular mechanisms underlying gene expression, studying how information is stored in genomic DNA and then transcribed into RNA, the first step in gene expression. This process relies on the enzyme RNA polymerase, a protein that helps to synthesize RNA from a DNA template. To understand the mechanisms behind gene expression, he applies X-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy to reveal the three-dimensional structures of bacterial, archaeal and bacteriophage RNA polymerases. By revealing these structures, Murakami’s group can further understand the mechanisms of RNA transcription and its regulation and investigate the mechanism of antibiotic action targeting bacterial RNA polymerase. In collaboration with other researchers at Penn State, Murakami also uses X-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy to study proteins involved in the replication of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19.
Murakami was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2020 and was selected as a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences by The Pew Charitable Trusts, a national philanthropy based in Philadelphia, in 2005. He was awarded the Norman and Rosita Winston Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2001 and the Human Frontier Science Program Postdoctoral Fellowship in 1998. Murakami is a member of the American Crystallographic Association, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the Biophysical Society and AAAS.
Prior to joining the faculty at Penn State, Murakami was a postdoctoral fellow at The Rockefeller University from 1998 to 2003. He was also a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Genetics in Japan from 1997 to 1998. He earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1992 and a master’s degree in chemistry in 1997 at Yamaguchi University in Japan. He earned his doctoral degree in genetics at The Graduate University for Advanced Studies in Japan in 1997.