Olke C. Uhlenbeck


Olke C. Uhlenbeck is a biochemist presently at Northwestern University.
He was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1993 and has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles.
His research group has led to many breakthroughs in RNA biochemistry, most notably the enzymatic synthesis of RNAs from synthetic DNA templates using T7 RNA polymerase. Olke was a founding member of the RNA Society. His father was theoretical physicist George Uhlenbeck.

Early contributions

As a graduate student in Paul Doty's lab, Uhlenbeck showed that the anticodon of tRNA was accessible to hybridization to oligonucleotides. Later, as a Miller Research Fellow in Ignacio Tinoco, Jr.'s lab he helped define an original model for RNA secondary structure prediction.

Personal life

Uhlenbeck's father was theoretical physicist George Uhlenbeck. He was married to Karen Uhlenbeck between 1965 and 1976.

Contributions from the Uhlenbeck Lab

Olke is a longstanding contributor to RNA biochemistry. His group has shown many important findings as well as developed important tools for RNA biochemists. Notable contributions include: