Lynne E. Maquat is a Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics and Director of the Center for RNA Biology at the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY. Dr. Maquat obtained her PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She undertook post-doctoral studies at the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research in Madison, after which she joined the faculty of the Department of Human Genetics at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY. She moved her laboratory to the University of Rochester in 2000. Research in Dr. Maquat’s laboratory focuses on mechanisms of RNP remodeling and mRNA decay in mammalian cells. Her work on nonsense-mediated mRNA decay has uncovered the exon-junction complex and the pioneer round of translation. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2006.