Randy Read

Randy Read
FRS
Randy Read at the Royal Society admissions day in London, July 2014
Born
Randy John Read

(1957-06-09) 9 June 1957 (age 69)
EducationUniversity of Alberta (BSc, PhD)
Known for
  • Phaser
  • PHENIX (Python-based Hierarchical ENvironment for Integrated Xtallography)
  • CCP4
AwardsWellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow

Max Perutz Prize (European Crystallographic Association), 2013

A. L. Patterson Award (American Crystallographic Association), 2026
Scientific career
Fields
WorkplacesUniversity of Cambridge
ThesisX-ray crystallographic studies on serine proteinases and their protein inhibitors (1986)
Michael N. G. James
Websitewww.cimr.cam.ac.uk/staff/professor-randy-j-read-frs

Randy John Read FRS (born 9 June 1957) is a professor of protein crystallography at the University of Cambridge and was a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow.

Education

Read was educated at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada where he was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in 1979 followed by a PhD in 1986 for X-ray crystallography of serine proteases and their protein inhibitors supervised by Michael N. G. James.

Career and research

Following his PhD, Read was appointed assistant professor from 1988 to 1993 and associate professor from 1993 to 1998 at the University of Alberta. As of 2017, Read's research interests are in protein crystallography and maximum likelihood estimation. His research has been published in leading peer reviewed scientific journals including Nature, Science, the Journal of Applied Crystallography Acta Crystallographica, Structure, PNAS, the Journal of Molecular Biology and the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Awards and honours

Read was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2014. His nomination reads:

Professor Read is known internationally for his outstanding and fundamental contributions to the development of macromolecular crystallographic software. His application of maximum likelihood based algorithms to the solution of macromolecular crystal structures by molecular replacement (a technique that uses a known structure of a homologue to solve an unknown structure) has resulted in software (Phaser) that is foremost in the field. He also devised and demonstrated an improved likelihood target function for model refinement that has been adopted by all major refinement programs. In addition, Professor Read has led structural work that has made significant contributions to understanding the mechanisms of proteins relevant to disease (bacterial toxins and serpins).

Read received the Max Perutz Prize of the European Crystallographic Association in 2013 and the A. L. Patterson Award of the American Crystallographic Association in 2026.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Anon (2014). "Read, Prof. Randy John". Who's Who (online Oxford University Press ed.). A & C Black. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.43034. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. 1 2 McCoy, A. J.; Grosse-Kunstleve, R. W.; Adams, P. D.; Winn, M. D.; Storoni, L. C.; Read, R. J. (2007). "Phaser crystallographic software". Journal of Applied Crystallography. 40 (4): 658–674. Bibcode:2007JApCr..40..658M. doi:10.1107/S0021889807021206. PMC 2483472. PMID 19461840.
  3. ↑ Adams, P. D.; Grosse-Kunstleve, R. W.; Hung, L. W.; Ioerger, T. R.; McCoy, A. J.; Moriarty, N. W.; Read, R. J.; Sacchettini, J. C.; Sauter, N. K.; Terwilliger, T. C. (2002). "PHENIX: Building new software for automated crystallographic structure determination". Acta Crystallographica Section D. 58 (11): 1948–1954. Bibcode:2002AcCrD..58.1948A. doi:10.1107/S0907444902016657. hdl:1969.1/180215. PMID 12393927.
  4. 1 2 Adams, P. D.; Afonine, P. V.; Bunkóczi, G. B.; Chen, V. B.; Davis, I. W.; Echols, N.; Headd, J. J.; Hung, L. W.; Kapral, G. J.; Grosse-Kunstleve, R. W.; McCoy, A. J.; Moriarty, N. W.; Oeffner, R.; Read, R. J.; Richardson, D. C.; Richardson, J. S.; Terwilliger, T. C.; Zwart, P. H. (2010). "PHENIX: A comprehensive Python-based system for macromolecular structure solution". Acta Crystallographica Section D. 66 (2): 213–21. Bibcode:2010AcCrD..66..213A. doi:10.1107/S0907444909052925. PMC 2815670. PMID 20124702.
  5. ↑ Liebschner, Dorothee; Afonine, Pavel V.; Baker, Matthew L.; Bunkóczi, Gábor; Chen, Vincent B.; Croll, Tristan I.; Hintze, Bradley; Hung, Li-Wei; Jain, Swati; McCoy, Airlie J.; Moriarty, Nigel W.; Oeffner, Robert D.; Poon, Billy K.; Prisant, Michael G.; Read, Randy J. (1 October 2019). "Macromolecular structure determination using X-rays, neutrons and electrons: recent developments in Phenix". Acta Crystallographica Section D: Structural Biology. 75 (10): 861–877. Bibcode:2019AcCrD..75..861L. doi:10.1107/S2059798319011471. ISSN 2059-7983. PMC 6778852. PMID 31588918.
  6. ↑ "The CCP4 suite: integrative software for macromolecular crystallography". Acta Crystallographica Section D: Structural Biology. 79 (6): 449–461. 2023. doi:10.1107/S2059798323003595.
  7. 1 2 3 Randy Read publications indexed by Google Scholar Edit this at Wikidata
  8. 1 2 Fujinaga, Masao; Sielecki, Anita R.; Read, Randy J.; Ardelt, Wojciech; Laskowski, Michael; James, Michael N.G. (1987). "Crystal and molecular structures of the complex of α-chymotrypsin with its inhibitor Turkey ovomucoid third domain at 1.8 Å resolution". Journal of Molecular Biology. 195 (2): 397–418. doi:10.1016/0022-2836(87)90659-0. ISSN 0022-2836. PMID 3477645.
  9. 1 2 Read, Randy John (1986). X-ray crystallographic studies on serine proteinases and their protein inhibitors (PhD thesis). University of Alberta Library. doi:10.7939/R33776175. hdl:10402/era.3098. ProQuest 250072156.
  10. 1 2 Anon (2014). "Professor Randy Read FRS". London: royalsociety.org. Archived from the original on 5 August 2014.
  11. ↑ Randy Read publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  12. ↑ Read, Randy (2017). "Randy Read's Homepage". University of Cambridge. Archived from the original on 15 May 2013. [dead link]
  13. ↑ Randy Read publications from Europe PubMed Central
  14. ↑ Zhou, A.; Carrell, R. W.; Murphy, M. P.; Wei, Z.; Yan, Y.; Stanley, P. L. D.; Stein, P. E.; Pipkin, F. B.; Read, R. J. (2010). "A redox switch in angiotensinogen modulates angiotensin release". Nature. 468 (7320): 108–11. Bibcode:2010Natur.468..108Z. doi:10.1038/nature09505. PMC 3024006. PMID 20927107.
  15. ↑ Dimaio, F.; Terwilliger, T. C.; Read, R. J.; Wlodawer, A.; Oberdorfer, G.; Wagner, U.; Valkov, E.; Alon, A.; Fass, D.; Axelrod, H. L.; Das, D.; Vorobiev, S. M.; Iwaï, H.; Pokkuluri, P. R.; Baker, D. (2011). "Improved molecular replacement by density- and energy-guided protein structure optimization". Nature. 473 (7348): 540–3. Bibcode:2011Natur.473..540D. doi:10.1038/nature09964. PMC 3365536. PMID 21532589.
  16. ↑ Qian, B.; Raman, S.; Das, R.; Bradley, P.; McCoy, A. J.; Read, R. J.; Baker, D. (2007). "High-resolution structure prediction and the crystallographic phase problem". Nature. 450 (7167): 259–64. Bibcode:2007Natur.450..259Q. doi:10.1038/nature06249. PMC 2504711. PMID 17934447.
  17. ↑ Jackson, R. N.; Golden, S. M.; Van Erp, P. B.; Carter, J; Westra, E. R.; Brouns, S. J.; Van Der Oost, J; Terwilliger, T. C.; Read, R. J.; Wiedenheft, B (2014). "Structural biology. Crystal structure of the CRISPR RNA-guided surveillance complex from Escherichia coli". Science. 345 (6203): 1473–9. doi:10.1126/science.1256328. PMC 4188430. PMID 25103409.
  18. ↑ Brünger, A. T.; Adams, P. D.; Clore, G. M.; Delano, W. L.; Gros, P.; Grosse-Kunstleve, R. W.; Jiang, J. S.; Kuszewski, J.; Nilges, M.; Pannu, N. S.; Read, R. J.; Rice, L. M.; Simonson, T.; Warren, G. L. (1998). "Crystallography & NMR System: A New Software Suite for Macromolecular Structure Determination". Acta Crystallographica Section D. 54 (5): 905–21. Bibcode:1998AcCrD..54..905B. doi:10.1107/S0907444998003254. PMID 9757107. S2CID 33910776.
  19. ↑ Read, R. J.; Kleywegt, G. J. (2009). "Case-controlled structure validation". Acta Crystallographica Section D. 65 (Pt 2): 140–7. Bibcode:2009AcCrD..65..140R. doi:10.1107/S0907444908041085. PMC 2631636. PMID 19171969.
  20. ↑ Read, R. J.; Adams, P. D.; Arendall, W. Bryan; Brunger, A. T.; Emsley, P; Joosten, R. P.; Kleywegt, G. J.; Krissinel, E. B.; Lütteke, T; Otwinowski, Z; Perrakis, A; Richardson, J. S.; Sheffler, W. H.; Smith, J. L.; Tickle, I. J.; Vriend, G; Zwart, P. H. (2011). "A new generation of crystallographic validation tools for the protein data bank". Structure. 19 (10): 1395–412. doi:10.1016/j.str.2011.08.006. PMC 3195755. PMID 22000512.
  21. ↑ Kleywegt, G. J.; Read, R. J. (1997). "Not your average density". Structure. 5 (12): 1557–69. doi:10.1016/s0969-2126(97)00305-5. PMID 9438862.
  22. ↑ Deane, J. E.; Graham, S. C.; Kim, N. N.; Stein, P. E.; McNair, R; Cachón-González, M. B.; Cox, T. M.; Read, R. J. (2011). "Insights into Krabbe disease from structures of galactocerebrosidase". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 108 (37): 15169–73. doi:10.1073/pnas.1105639108. PMC 3174575. PMID 21876145.
  23. ↑ Zhou, A; Wei, Z; Stanley, P. L.; Read, R. J.; Stein, P. E.; Carrell, R. W. (2008). "The S-to-R transition of corticosteroid-binding globulin and the mechanism of hormone release". Journal of Molecular Biology. 380 (1): 244–51. doi:10.1016/j.jmb.2008.05.012. PMID 18513745.
  24. ↑ Stoop, A. A.; Eldering, E; Dafforn, T. R.; Read, R. J.; Pannekoek, H (2001). "Different structural requirements for plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (PAI-1) during latency transition and proteinase inhibition as evidenced by phage-displayed hypermutated PAI-1 libraries". Journal of Molecular Biology. 305 (4): 773–83. doi:10.1006/jmbi.2000.4356. PMID 11162091.
  25. ↑ Chan, W. L.; Carrell, R. W.; Zhou, A; Read, R. J. (2013). "How changes in affinity of corticosteroid-binding globulin modulate free cortisol concentration". The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. 98 (8): 3315–22. doi:10.1210/jc.2012-4280. PMC 3813945. PMID 23783094.
  26. ↑ ECA Admin (15 September 2015). "Seventh ECA Max Perutz Prize to Professor Randy J. Read". European Crystallographic Association. Retrieved 13 March 2026.
  27. ↑ "Current Award Winners". amercrystalassn.org. Retrieved 13 March 2026.