Patrick E. Lackey

I have been at Westminster since 2016 and currently serve as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry. I teach the Biochemistry sequence of courses: Principles of Biochemistry (CHE 381), Metabolic Biochemistry (CHE 382), and Biochemical Methods (CHE 383), in addition to first-year chemistry courses. 

I earned my B.S. in Biochemistry from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and my Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Biophysics from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. 

I developed an interest in RNA early in my academic career and have been working on it ever since: as an undergrad I studied biophysical interations between RNA structures called G-quartets and proteins, and my Ph.D. project was on the regulation of histone mRNA degradation. 

At Westminster I am continuing my work on histone mRNA -- histone mRNA is a unique mRNA in that it does not have a 3' poly(A) tail and instead ends with a stem-loop responsible for regulating many aspects of the molecule's metabolism. I am investigating the conservation of this mechanism of regulation in very low-level eukaryotes like slime molds and algaes.