Joachim Messing, left, and Richard H. Ebright, right, professors at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University–New Brunswick

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Joachim Messing, left, and Richard H. Ebright, right, professors at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University–New Brunswick, were elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in the category of biological sciences. Messing is known for his research into plant genetics while Ebright is recognized for his work in transcription, the synthesis of an RNA copy of genetic information in DNA.

Photography: 
Nick Romanenko; courtesy Richard H. Ebright

Two professors at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at  Rutgers University–New BrunswickJoachim Messing and Richard H. Ebright—were recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious conclaves of scientists, scholars, and govern­mental leaders, among them 250 Nobel laureates and 60 Pulitzer Prize winners. This year’s members, who will be inducted in October, include authors Colm Tóibín and Walter Isaacson, autism spokesperson Temple Grandin, and former Botswana president Festus Mogae. Messing and Ebright are two of 213 inductees; they were selected under the category of biological sciences.

“The honor of election to the American Academy is also a call to service,” says Jonathan F. Fanton, the president of the academy, an independent policy research center founded in 1780. “The academy provides members with opportunities to make common cause with one another. We invite these newly elected members to participate in this important and rewarding work.”

Messing—the first holder of the Selman A. Waksman Chair in Molecular Genetics, the fourth  director of the Waksman Institute, and a professor of molecular biology at Rutgers since 1985—has been instrumental in launching many research programs in the life sciences. He spearheaded the development of technological tools for deciphering and engineering genomes, ranging from bacteria to human beings.

Messing has also conducted extensive research into plant genetics, gaining distinction for a genetic-engineering technique that has produced disease-resistant crops and drought-tolerant plants. Messing won the Wolf Prize in Agriculture in 2013, considered by many to be the equivalent of the Nobel. The Rutgers Board of Governors recently approved the creation of an endowed chair in molecular genetics in his name, made possible by private gifts. Messing contributed $50,000 of his Wolf prize money to help fund the chair.

Ebright, the Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology who directs a Waksman Institute laboratory, has dedicated his career to researching transcription, which is the synthesis of an RNA copy of genetic information in DNA. It is the first step in gene expression and the step when most regulation of gene expression occurs. One half of Ebright’s laboratory of 25 postdoctoral associates, graduate students, and technicians studies the structure and mechanism of bacterial RNA polymerase, which is the enzyme that bacteria rely on to synthesize RNA. Others work on discovering and developing antibacterial drugs that function by inhibiting bacterial RNA polymerase. Ebright, the recipient of the Searle Scholar Award and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has more than 30 issued and pending patents.