Joan Weliky Conaway

Dr. Joan W. Conaway is Professor of Molecular Biology and Vice Provost and Dean of Basic Research at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. Before moving to UT Southwestern, she was an Investigator at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research and a Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at The University of Kansas Medical Center. More than four decades ago Conaway and her husband, Dr. Ron Conaway, teamed up to carry out the kind of column-packing, rotor-toting, get-dirty biochemistry that finds you in the lab at 2 in the morning. Their reward was no less than a body of work defining how the enzyme RNA polymerase II (pol II) catalyzes transcription of mRNA, the fundamental requirement for gene expression. The two continued to work together to identify key transcription factors involved in gene expression, eventually creating a system capable of initiating transcription in vitro with pure proteins – a feat hailed by Nature as a “milestone of gene expression.” Over time, the two shifted their research to include evaluation of proteins that increase the rate at which mRNA strands elongate – an area of basic research with critical implications for understanding processes that can lead to cancer. Until they closed their lab in 2021 their research continued to focus on uncovering the identity and role of transcriptional regulatory proteins, which have roles in transcription initiation, elongation, and chromatin remodeling. The Conaways received the ASBMB-Amgen Award in recognition of their joint efforts. Their publications appear in prominent journals including Science, Nature, Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, the Journal of Biological Chemistry, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United Stated of America.