Women in Science and Engineering at Yale (2020 Edition)

Susan Baserga, MD, Ph.D.

Professor, Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and  Yale School of Medicine, Department of Genetics and of Therapeutic Radiology

Dr. Baserga was the first alumna of Yale College to receive tenure as a faculty member in the biological sciences in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Yale. Her laboratory has pioneered the molecular basis of how ribosomes are made in our cells; they are now pursuing the mechanistic basis of human diseases called ribosomopathies. In 2018, she was elected to the National Academy of Inventors.

Ribosome biogenesis in the nucleolus is essential for cell growth in all eukaryotic cells. Farley-Barnes et al. use an unbiased genome-wide siRNA screen in human cells to discover proteins required to make ribosomes, connecting unexpected pathways to ribosome assembly. Farley-Barnes et al., 2018, Cell Reports 22, 1923–1934