John Rinn Portrait
Professor • Leslie Orgel Professor of RNA Science • Marvin H. Caruthers Endowed Chair for Early-Career Faculty

Office: JSCBB B417
Lab: JSCBB A453

Education

Bachelor's: Chemistry, University of Minnesota 1999
PhD: Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University 2004
2015 Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University

Areas of Expertise

Bioinformatics & computational biology, Cell signaling, Epigenetics, Gene expression & regulation, Genetics & chemical biology, Nucleic acids, Single molecule biology, Systems biology

Awards and Honors

  • 2020 Web of Science top 1% most influential scientists in the world over the past decade
  • 2016 HHMI Faculty Scholars
  • 2014 Thompson Reuters Most Influential Scientist
  • 2014 National Academy of Science Distinctive Voices
  • 2014 National Academy of Science Sackler Colloquium
  • 2013 Alvin and Esta Starr Associate Professorship
  • 2012 PopTech Science Fellow
  • 2010 Merkin Next Generation Fellow
  • 2009 Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation            
  • 2009 NIH Innovator
  • 2009 Popular Science Magazine’s “Brilliant 10”
  • 2008 Smith Family Foundation Fellowship
  • 2005 Damon Runyon Cancer Foundation Fellowship
  • 2004 Yale University School of Arts and Sciences Commencement Marshall 
  • 2003 McDougal Fellowship, Yale University, for Professional Development.
  • 2002 AAAS Biovision Fellowship.
  • 1999 Department of Chemistry Honors : Awarded to top 10 chemistry graduates.
  • 1999 Casmir Illunda Award : best senior thesis research and presentation.

Our research bridges computational and experimental sciences to discover new regulatory aspects in the human genome - - Specifically how long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) genes regulate numerous biological processes. We have continually applied and developed many technologies such as single-molecule RNA imaging, RNA-sequencing, Single Cell RNA-sequencing, CRISPR-Display and SNP-CLING. This multifaceted and cross-disciplinary approach is focused on unraveling the molecular modalities underlying RNA biology and in turn how it regulates cell state. 

Google Scholar​

Our teaching of University of Colorado Biochemistry Undergraduate and Graduate Students aims to enable all students to perform bioinformatic and data science analyses on ever emerging forms of genome-wide data such as RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, ATAC-seq.

Rinn Lab Teaching

See my NCBI bibliography for a full and up-to-date list