Dr. Romesberg has managed a research group at The Scripps Research Institute since 1998. His group uses a broad range of techniques, including non-linear optical spectroscopy, organic chemistry, microbiology, and genetics, to study different aspects of evolution. This work has been described in more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Dr. Romesberg is best known for developing unnatural base pairs for the expansion of the genetic alphabet and is also working to develop novel antibiotics, as well as to understand how evolution tailors protein dynamics and how cellular stress and DNA damage induce cell-cycle checkpoint responses and mutations.
Dr. Romesberg is also the scientific founder and a member of the board of directors of Synthorx. Prior to Synthorx, he served as the scientific co-founder and a member of the board of directors of RQx Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Genentech) and Achaogen. Dr. Romesberg received a B.S. in chemistry from The Ohio State University and a Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry from Cornell University.