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David P. Bartel Ph.D. is a Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Member of the Whitehead Institute, Molecular Biologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, and investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He earned his B.A. in Biology from Goshen College and his Ph.D. in Virology from Harvard University under the mentorship of Jack W. Szostak.
While in the Szostak lab, he isolated the first ligase ribozyme directly from random sequence, using in vitro evolution. After he became independent at the Whitehead Institute, he further evolved this ribozyme to function as a RNA-dependent RNA polymerase to extend primers on external RNA templates, bolstering the "RNA world" theory. He later shifted his research focus towards microRNA biology and in particular on understanding their regulatory functions.
In 2006 he was placed second by Thomson Reuters in a 'citations' ranking in the field of Molecular Biology/Genetics. He has received several awards and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2011.
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