Daniel Herschlag (born October 16, 1958) is an American biochemist and Professor of Biochemistry at the Stanford University School of Medicine. His research uses an interdisciplinary approach to advance our understanding of the fundamental behavior of RNA and proteins. He is well known for his application of rigorous kinetic and mechanistic approaches to RNA and protein systems.
Education
Herschlag received a B.S. degree in biochemistry from Binghamton University in 1982. He began his graduate studies at University of Minnesota then moved on to complete his Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry at Brandeis University under W.P. Jencks in 1988.
Career
Herschlag was a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1989 to 1992. He conducted post-doctoral research on the mechanism of the newly discovered RNA self-splicing reaction in the lab of Tom Cech.
In 1992, Herschlag joined the faculty of the Department of Biochemistry in the Stanford University School of Medicine, earning tenure in 1997. He was promoted to full professor in 2002.
In 2011, he was appointed the Senior Associate Dean of Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Affairs for the Stanford University School of Medicine.
Selected awards Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry, 1997 Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society, 2000 ASBMB William Rose Award, 2010 National Academy of Sciences Inductee, 2018 Biophysical Society Founders Award, 2020
Selected publications
Personal Herschlag currently lives in El Granada, CA with his wife and two children.
See also List of RNA biologists
References
External links Herschlag Lab Website Stanford University School of Medicine Biochemistry Department Stanford Community Academic Profile, Daniel Herschlag QnAs with Daniel Herschlag. PNAS. Vol. 123 (28), July 8, 2026, e2621353123, doi:10.1073/pnas.2621353123.