Richard Marc Losick PhD, AB

Richard Marc Losick is a Professor of Biology at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Losick received his AB in Chemistry from Princeton University in 1965, and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1969. Richard Losick studies gene control in bacteria, including RNA polymerase, gene transcription, and its control, and development in microorganisms, with a special interest in the developmental process of spore formation in the soil bacterium B. subtilis. Losick created two programs, Increasing Diversity and Education Access to Sciences (IDEAS) and Life Sciences 100, for hands-on learning and increasing diversity in science by engaging students from disadvantaged backgrounds in long-term research projects. He teaches an interdisciplinary course integrating molecular and cellular biology with chemistry for freshmen entering the life sciences and hopes to encourage colleagues at other colleges to teach similar courses with the help of an open-access eBook that he co-created.