Christine Guthrie

Christine Guthrie is an American yeast geneticist and American Cancer Society Research Professor of Genetics at University of California San Francisco. She showed that yeast have small nuclear RNAs (snRNAs) involved in splicing pre-messenger RNA into messenger RNA in eukaryotic cells. Guthrie cloned and sequenced the genes for yeast snRNA and established the role of base pairing between the snRNAs and their target sequences at each step in the removal of an intron. She also identified proteins that formed part of the spliceosome complex with the snRNAs. Elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1993, Guthrie edited "Guide to Yeast Genetics and Molecular Biology", an influential methods series for many years.
Early life and education.
Christine Guthrie was born in Brooklyn, New York. She received a BS in Zoology from University of Michigan and a PhD in genetics from University of Wisconsin. Her PhD advisor was Masayasu Nomura.
She is the daughter of Brooklyn native and humorist Irene Kampen, whose book, Life Without George, was the basis for The Lucy Show, which aired for six seasons on CBS in the 1960s. (Lucy's daughter on the show was named Chris.)
Academic career.
In 1973, she was hired as an Assistant Professor at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). After a tough pre-tenure review in 1976, she found support in a group of women and men who met informally for 20 years to help each other thrive in academia. She is now professor of biochemistry and American Cancer Society Research Professor of Genetics at UCSF.
Research.
Guthrie showed that yeast have introns in their pre-messenger RNAs. They also have small nuclear RNAs (snRNAs) involved in splicing pre-messenger RNA into messenger RNA in eukaryotic cells. 2 In work described in her citation for the Genetics Society of America Medal as a “macromolecular tour de force”, she cloned and sequenced the "SNR" genes for the yeast snRNAs. To accomplish this feat, she had to invent methods to discriminate functional snRNAs from degradation products and also to create widely used intron-containing reporter genes. Her work established the role of base pairing between the snRNAs and their target sequences at each step in the removal of an intron and allowed identification of proteins that formed part of the spliceosome complex with the snRNAs.
Personal life.
Guthrie is married to John Abelson, biochemist and geneticist.