Hashim Al-Hashimi Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Hashim Al-Hashimi, the Roy and Diana Vagelos Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Over the past two decades, Al-Hashimi has developed techniques to determine 3D dynamic ensembles of RNA and DNA molecules at atomic resolution. These studies have reshaped structural biology, revealing dynamic ensembles as the fundamental behavior of biomolecules needed to understand and predict cellular activity quantitatively.

Al-Hashimi is one of nearly 250 new members elected this year to the academy. Founded in 1780, the academy honors excellence and convenes leaders from every field of human endeavor to examine new ideas, address issues of importance to the nation and the world, and work together “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.”

New members were announced on April 24; induction ceremonies will take place in October.

If you zoom down to the atomic level, biomolecules like DNA and RNA constantly change shape. Al-Hashimi is at the vanguard of studying these dynamic structures. “Ultimately these changes in structure determine how biomolecules interact with one another, and every biological phenomenon and disease is the product of such molecular interactions,” says Al-Hashimi.

Using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, he has made discoveries that have led to insights about cancer and other diseases and new therapeutic tools that target RNA. He received the National Academy of Sciences Award in Molecular Biology in 2020 for his work.

Al-Hashimi is also associate dean for biomedical graduate education at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and director of biomedical graduate training in the Roy and Diana Vagelos Institute for Basic Biomedical Science.