William "Bil" Clemons, Jr. is an American

structural biologist Structural biology deals with structural analysis of living material (formed, composed of, and/or maintained and refined by living cells) at every level of organization. Early structural biologists throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries we ...

and Professor of

Biochemistry Biochemistry, or biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology, a ...

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private university, private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small g ...

. He is best known for his work solving the atomic structure of the

ribosome Ribosomes () are molecular machine, macromolecular machines, found within all cell (biology), cells, that perform Translation (biology), biological protein synthesis (messenger RNA translation). Ribosomes link amino acids together in the order s ...

with dissertation advisor, Nobel Prize winner in chemistry

Venki Ramakrishnan Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (born 1952) is a British-American structural biologist. He shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Thomas A. Steitz and Ada Yonath for research on the structure and function of ribosomes. Since 1999, he has wo ...

. 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, chaperones involved in the targeting of tail-anchored membrane proteins in the Get pathway, and signal recognition proteins of the

Twin-arginine translocation pathway The twin-arginine translocation pathway (Tat pathway) is a protein export, or secretion pathway found in plants, bacteria, and archaea. In contrast to the Sec pathway which transports proteins in an unfolded manner, the Tat pathway serves to ac ...

. He was elected a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

in 2022.

Education

Clemons received a B.S. in biochemistry from

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University The Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, commonly referred to as Virginia Tech (VT), is a Public university, public Land-grant college, land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States ...

in 1995. In 2000, he received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the

University of Utah The University of Utah (the U, U of U, or simply Utah) is a public university, public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret (Book of Mormon), Deseret by the General A ...

while working jointly with the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, in Cambridge, England under the advisement of

. He then spent four years, from 2001 to 2005, as a postdoctoral fellow under Professor

Tom Rapoport Tom Abraham Rapoport (born June 17, 1947) is a German-American cell biologist who studies protein transport in cells. Currently, he is a professor at Harvard Medical School and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. Born in Cincinnati, Oh ...

in the Department of Cell Biology at

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area, Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is the third oldest medical school in the Un ...

Career

In January 2006, Clemons began as an assistant professor in the Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Division at the California Institute of Technology. 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. He has spoken on the intersection of science and diversity as an invited speaker. Clemons serves as a Science Program Officer for the

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) is an organization established and owned by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan with an investment of 99 percent of the couple's wealth from their Facebook shares over their lifetim ...

Honors and awards

* 2018 Virginia Tech Biochemistry - Distinguished Alumni * 2017 Dr. Fred Shair Award for Programming Diversity * 2011-2016 NIH Pioneer Award * 2005-2010 Burroughs Wellcome Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences

References

External links

* https://www.bwfund.org/newsroom/awardee-profiles/awardee-profile-bil-clemons * https://sbgrid.org/software/tale/predicting-success
https://www.biochem.vt.edu/people/Featured_Alumni.html
* https://science.oregonstate.edu/IMPACT/2018/02/distinguished-biochemist-speak-diversity-science-higher-education * {{DEFAULTSORT:Clemons, Bil Year of birth missing (living people) Living people California Institute of Technology faculty Structural biologists University of Utah alumni Virginia Tech alumni Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Chan Zuckerberg Initiative