| 1 | Name: | Dr. Maxine F. Singer | |
| Institution: | Carnegie Institution of Washington & National Institutes of Health | ||
| Year Elected: | 1990 | ||
| Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | ||
| Subdivision: | 201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1931 | ||
Maxine Frank Singer has made major contributions to the biochemistry of nucleic acids and more recently to our knowledge of the mammalian genome structure and organization. She has also served with distinction as chair of the editorial board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and as president of the Carnegie Institution, and she is widely recognized as an articulate author and spokesperson for science. After receiving her Ph.D. in biochemistry from Yale University in 1957, Dr. Singer joined the research staff of the National Institutes of Health. She would later serve as chief of the Laboratory of Biochemistry at the National Cancer Institute from 1980-87, where she led fifteen research groups engaged in various biochemical investigations. Dr. Singer's research contributions have ranged over several areas of biochemistry and molecular biology, including chromatin structure, the structure and evolution of defective viruses, and enzymes that work on DNA and its complementary molecule, RNA. In recent years, her foremost contributions have been in studies of a large family of repeated DNA sequences called LINES - sequences interspersed many times in mammalian DNA. She and her co-workers have been especially interested in the LINE-1 sequence, which is repeated thousands of times in human DNA. LINE-1, she early concluded, is capable of insertion into new places on chromosomal DNA, and researchers elsewhere later found that LINE-1 insertions into a gene whose product is required for blood clotting are associated with cases of hemophilia. Believing that the mechanism of LINE-1 transposition might have broad significance for understanding genetic diseases, Dr. Singer and her colleagues have concentrated their experiments on learning how LINE-1 elements move. Throughout her career, Dr. Singer has assumed leading roles in influencing and refining the nation's science policy. In 1988 she became President of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, where she led the biologists, astronomers and earth scientists who make up the Institution's six scientific departments. Dr. Singer is presently President Emerita of the Carnegie Institution while also retaining her association with the National Cancer Institute as Scientist Emerita. Her several awards for public service include the Distinguished Presidential Rank Award (1988) and the National Medal of Science (1992), the nation's highest scientific honor bestowed by the President of the United States, "for her outstanding scientific accomplishments and her deep concern for the societal responsibility of the scientist." Most recently, she was honored with the 2007 Public Welfare Medal, the National Academy of Sciences' most prestigious award recognizing extraordinary use of science for the public good. | |||