Dr. Robert Reenan

Biography

Robert Reenan is a professor in the Department of Biology at Brown University. He trained in the graduate student laboratory of Dr. Richard Kolodner at Harvard Medical School, where he studied DNA repair processes in yeast, ultimately discovering genes that are important in human cancer. After his post-doctoral work in the Laboratory of Genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Dr. Barry Ganetzky, he developed a lasting interest in behavioral neurogenetics, particularly focusing on ion channel genes in the fruit fly, Drosophila. Reenan began his independent career at the University of Connecticut Medical School in the Department of Genetics, where he discovered RNA editing processes in the nervous system of the fly. In 2006, he joined the faculty at Brown University. His research interests center on the evolution of brain function and behavior, using Drosophila as a primary model system to investigate how genomes encode and regulate proteins involved in rapid electrical and chemical signaling in the brain. Through his career, he has conducted studies on RNA editing, comparative genomics, small non-coding RNAs, and inherited neurological disorders.

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