Andrew D. Ellington
University of Texas, Austin
Dr. Andrew Ellington received his B.S. in Biochemistry from Michigan State University in 1981, and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Harvard in 1988. As a graduate student he worked with Dr. Steve Benner on the evolutionary optimization of dehydrogenase isozymes. His post-doctoral work was with Dr. Jack Szostak at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he developed methods for the in vitro selection of functional nucleic acids and coined the term 'aptamer.' Dr. Ellington began his academic career as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Indiana University in 1992, and continued to develop selection methods. He received the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator, Cottrell, and Pew Scholar awards. In 1998 he moved to the University of Texas at Austin and is now the Fraser Professor of Biochemistry. Dr. Ellington's lab now works on the development of functional nucleic acids for practical applications, including aptamer biosensors, allosteric ribozyme logic gates (aptazymes), and internalizing nucleic acids that can deliver siRNAs to cells. The next leap forward will hopefully be to develop synthetic genetic circuits that can perform amorphous computations. Dr. Ellington was a member of the Defense Science Study Group, and continues to be active in the DIA advisory group Biochem2020.