William M. Clemons, Jr.
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater
Known forAtomic structures of the ribosome, translocon
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
ThesisThe structure of the small ribosomal subunit (2000)
Doctoral advisorVenki Ramakrishnan
Other academic advisors
Websitehttp://clemonslab.caltech.edu

William "Bil" Clemons, Jr. is an American structural biologist and Professor of Biochemistry at Caltech.[1] He is best known for his work solving the atomic structure of the ribosome with dissertation advisor, Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry, Venki Ramakrishnan.[2] He is also known for his work on the structure and function of proteins involved in membrane translocation and docking of proteins, including the membrane protein translocation channel SecY,[3] chaperones involved in the targeting of tail-anchored membrane proteins in the Get pathway,[4] and signal recognition proteins of the Twin-arginine translocation pathway.[5] He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2022.[6]

Education

Clemons received a B.S. in biochemistry from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1995. In 2000, he received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Utah while working jointly with the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, in Cambridge, England under the advisement of Venki Ramakrishnan. He then spent four years, from 2001 to 2005, as a postdoctoral fellow under Professor Tom Rapoport in the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School.

Career

In January 2006, Clemons began as an assistant professor in the Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Division at the California Institute of Technology.[7] In 2013, Clemons became professor of Biochemistry. He has also held a Visiting Professor appointment from 2018-2019 at the Institute of Organic Chemistry & Biochemistry, Prague, Czech Republic.

Diversity and Inclusion

As a member of the President's Diversity Council at Caltech, Clemons mentors and advocates for diversity and enrollment of minority students in STEM education.[8] He has spoken on the intersection of science and diversity as an invited speaker.[8]

Honors and awards

  • 2018 Virginia Tech Biochemistry - Distinguished Alumni[9][10]
  • 2017 Dr. Fred Shair Award for Programming Diversity[11][12]
  • 2011-2016 NIH Pioneer Award[13]
  • 2005-2010 Burroughs Wellcome Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences[7]

References

  1. Bil Clemons publications from Europe PubMed Central
  2. Ramakrishnan, Venki (September 20, 2018). "Getting started in Utah". Gene Machine: The Race to Decipher the Secrets of the Ribosome. Oneworld Publications. ISBN 9781786074379.
  3. Cannon, Kurt S.; Or, Eran; Clemons, William M.; Shibata, Yoko; Rapoport, Tom A. (2005). "Disulfide bridge formation between SecY and a translocating polypeptide localizes the translocation pore to the center of SecY". Journal of Cell Biology. 169 (2): 219–225. doi:10.1083/jcb.200412019. ISSN 1540-8140. PMC 2171872. PMID 15851514.
  4. Suloway, C. J. M.; Chartron, J. W.; Zaslaver, M.; Clemons, W. M. (2009). "Model for eukaryotic tail-anchored protein binding based on the structure of Get3". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 106 (35): 14849–14854. Bibcode:2009PNAS..10614849S. doi:10.1073/pnas.0907522106. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 2736419. PMID 19706470.
  5. Ramasamy, Sureshkumar; Abrol, Ravinder; Suloway, Christian; Clemons, William (2013). "The Glove-like Structure of the Conserved Membrane Protein TatC Provides Insight into Signal Sequence Recognition in Twin-Arginine Translocation". Structure. 21 (5): 777–788. doi:10.1016/j.str.2013.03.004. ISSN 0969-2126. PMC 3653977. PMID 23583035.
  6. "2022 NAS Election".
  7. 1 2 "Awardee Profile - Bil Clemons | Burroughs Wellcome Fund". www.bwfund.org. Retrieved 2020-08-16.
  8. 1 2 "Distinguished biochemist speaks on diversity in science and academia". College of Science | Oregon State University. 2019-10-24. Retrieved 2020-08-17.
  9. "Featured Alumni". biochem.vt.edu. Archived from the original on 2020-10-20. Retrieved 2021-06-17.
  10. "2017-18 Alumni Award Recipients". www.cals.vt.edu. Archived from the original on 2021-06-24. Retrieved 2021-06-17.
  11. "Past Recipients | Center for Inclusion & Diversity". diversity.caltech.edu. Retrieved 2020-08-16.
  12. "ENGEL HALL NEWS BIOCHEMISTRY" (PDF). 2018.
  13. "Project Information - NIH RePORTER - NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools Expenditures and Results". projectreporter.nih.gov. Retrieved 2020-08-16.
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