JoAnne Stubbe
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"For fundamental research in biochemistry and enzymology."

JoAnne Stubbe is widely recognized for her creativity in using research tools and techniques - and working with collaborators to develop new ones - in her focused search for answers.  She is perhaps best known for her work in unraveling the workings of a key class of enzymes that play an essential role in DNA replication and repair.

Dr. Stubbe studies free radicals, molecules with an unpaired electron, which are highly reactive.  She has traced how nature has harnessed their extreme reactivity in an exquisitely controlled fashion to carry out chemical reactions in the body.  In one of these, she has detailed how certain enzymes, called ribonucleotide reductases, use free radical chemistry to convert the monomeric RNA building blocks, or nucleotides, into the monomeric DNA building blocks, deoxynucleotides, essential to make and repair DNA.  Understanding this process led to the development of the drug gemcitabine, used to treat cancers.

Her interests are wide ranging.  Dr. Stubbe has explained how the antitumor antibiotic bleomycin kills cancer cells by binding to and degrading DNA, and she has shown how to make biodegradable plastic from biomolecules.

With degrees in chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley, she began her career teaching at William College.  After postdoctoral work at Brandeis, she served on the faculties of Yale University School of Medicine and University of Wisconsin-Madison before moving to MIT.  An active member of editorial boards and chemistry panels and committees, she has earned numerous honors, including the National Medal of Science last year.