doi.bio/randy_j_read

Professor Randy John Read FRS Fellow of the Royal Society

Early Life and Education

Randy John Read was born on 9 June 1957 in Canada. He studied Biochemistry at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, specialising in protein crystallography for his PhD.

Career

After a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, Read returned to the University of Alberta, where he was appointed assistant professor from 1988 to 1993 and associate professor from 1993 to 1998. In 1998, he moved to Cambridge to join the new Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, supported by a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellowship. He is currently a professor of protein crystallography at the University of Cambridge.

Research

Read's research interests include protein crystallography and maximum likelihood estimation. His notable research contributions include:

• Developing the software Phaser, which is used for solving macromolecular crystal structures by molecular replacement.
• Devising an improved likelihood target function for model refinement, which has been adopted by major refinement programs.
• Structural work contributing to the understanding of the mechanisms of proteins relevant to disease, such as bacterial toxins and serpins.
• Applications of artificial intelligence in structural biology, such as the use of AlphaFold for protein structure prediction.

Publications

Read's research has been published in leading peer-reviewed scientific journals, including:

• Nature
• Science
• Journal of Applied Crystallography
• Acta Crystallographica
• Structure
• PNAS
• Journal of Molecular Biology
• Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism

Awards and Honours

• Elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2014.
• Appointed Section Editor of Acta Crystallographica Section D (Structural Biology).
• Member of the CCP4 Executive Committee.

References