Richard Brennan, PhD
Richard Brennan, PhD, is the Chair of Biochemistry at Duke University School of Medicine. He joined the Duke faculty in January 2011.
Before coming to Duke, Brennan served as the founding director of the Center for Biomolecular Structure and Function at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Brennan joined Duke to build on the department’s strengths and enhance its excellence in structural biology, while also leading its expansion into single molecule science, cryo-electron microscopy, and other developing areas.
Brennan, who is originally from Boston, earned his BA in Biology from Boston University in 1977 and then completed his PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1984. He received post-doctoral training in the laboratory of Brian W. Matthews, PhD, DSc, at the Institute of Molecular Biology at the University of Oregon.
At MD Anderson, Brennan was the Robert A. Welch Distinguished University Chair in Chemistry as a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He also served as an adjunct professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Rice University, also in Houston.
Brennan is an accomplished structural biologist whose personal research focuses on the mechanisms of gene expressions, multidrug resistance, and multidrug tolerance. Under his direction, his lab has solved the crystal structures of a number of transcription regulators and biologically germane protein-ligand complexes.
They have studied PurR, which senses the levels of purines in the cell. They have elucidated a multiprotein DNA structure involved in carbon catabolite regulation (CCR) in bacilli, opening avenues to exploit CCR as a novel drug target. His lab has also undertaken biochemical and structural studies on Hfq and Hfq-RNA complexes in order to understand post-translational regulation by sRNAs in bacteria.
Joining Brennan as a professor in the Department of Biochemistry is his partner, Maria Schumacher, PhD, a noted biochemistry researcher with specific expertise in protein-nucleic acid interaction, gene regulation, and DNA segregation/partitioning.
Brennan has published over 115 articles, including those elucidating the first high-resolution structures of a LacI, MerR, or MarR family member bound to cognate DNA. His laboratory was also the first to describe the structural mechanism by which a multidrug binding transcription regulator is able to bind to multiple structurally and chemically dissimilar toxins.
Beyond research, Brennan has had a long-standing interest in graduate and postdoctoral education and training. He has served on the NIGMS Biomedical Research and Research Training grant study section, as well as a councilor for the Biophysical Society. In 2004, he was awarded the John A. Resko Faculty Research Achievement and Mentoring Award from the Oregon Health & Science University.
Brennan is a member of several professional societies, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Crystallographic Society, American Society for Microbiology, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and the Biophysical Society.
He is currently serving on the editorial boards of Molecular Microbiology, mBio, and the Journal of Bacteriology. He was elected Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 2007.
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