Richard Brennan is the James B. Duke Professor of Biochemistry and chair of the Department of Biochemistry at Duke University School of Medicine. A major focus of the Brennan laboratory is the delineation of the molecular and structural mechanisms of protein-nucleic interaction in order to understand more completely bacterial multidrug resistance, multidrug tolerance/persistence and riboregulation at the levels of transcription and posttranscription regulation. Brennan’s studies on multidrug resistance have led to a deeper grasp of how a single protein can bind myriad, chemically and structurally dissimilar compounds to effect antimicrobial resistance. Dr. Brennan is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and the AAAS.