An Interview with Ronald M. Evans,Ph.D. Investigator,The Salk Institute for Biological Studies

Dr. Ronald M. Evans is known for his original discoveries of nuclear receptor hormone receptors and the elucidation of their universal mechanism of action, a process that governs how lipophilic hormones and drugs regulate virtually every developmental and metabolic pathway in animals and humans. Dr. Evans obtained his Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Rockefeller University in New York. At Rockefeller, his studies on the transcriptional regulation of human adenovirus led to the identification of the first eukaryotic promoter for messenger RNA. In 1977, he joined the faculty of The Salk Institute for Biological Studies where he is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Professor in the Gene Expression Laboratory. He also holds the March of Dimes Chair in Molecular and Developmental Biology. In addition to his Salk appointment, he is an Adjunct Professor at the University of California, San Diego in the Departments of Biology, Biomedical Sciences, and Neuroscience. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1989, was named the 1994 California Scientist of the Year by the California Museum of Science and Industry, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1997 and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies in 2003. Consistent with the broad impact of his work, he is listed by the Institute of Scientific Information as one of the most cited scientists of the past decade.