Erik J. Sontheimer, Ph.D., is the Pillar Chair in Biomedical Research and Professor at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, where he is also Vice Chair of the RNA Therapeutics Institute (RTI). He earned his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1992, followed by postdoctoral research as a Jane Coffin Childs Fund Fellow at the University of Chicago. He then joined the faculty at Northwestern University where he continued his work on the roles of RNA molecules in gene expression, including pre-mRNA splicing mechanisms, RNA interference pathways, and CRISPR immune systems in pathogenic bacteria. Among other advances, in 2008 his group reported that CRISPR systems can function via DNA destruction, and they first described CRISPR’s potential for RNA-guided genome engineering. He has received a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation, a New Investigator Award in the Basic Pharmacological Sciences from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, a Basil O’Conner Award from the March of Dimes, a Scholar Award from the American Cancer Society, a Distinguished Teaching Award from the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern, the Nestlé Award from the American Society for Microbiology, the Mid-Career Award from the RNA Society, and election to the American Academy of Microbiology. In 2014 he co-founded Intellia Therapeutics, Inc. for the development of clinical applications of CRISPR gene editing. That same year he also moved to the RTI at UMass Chan Medical School, where he is continuing his research on the uses of RNA molecules in biomedical research and the treatment of human disease. He currently serves as Co-chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors at the National Cancer Institute and as a member of the Scientific Advisory Boards at Intellia Therapeutics as well as Tessera Therapeutics.