Scott K. Silverman

Scott K. Silverman was born in 1972 and raised in Los Angeles, California. He received his B.S. degree in chemistry from UCLA in 1991, working with Christopher Foote on photooxygenation mechanisms. He was an NSF and ACS Organic Chemistry predoctoral fellow with Dennis Dougherty at Caltech, studying high-spin organic polyradicals and molecular neurobiology and graduating with a Ph.D. in chemistry in 1997. After postdoctoral research on RNA biochemistry as a Helen Hay Whitney Foundation and American Cancer Society fellow with Thomas Cech at the University of Colorado Boulder, he joined the faculty at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2000, where he is currently Professor of Chemistry. His laboratory focuses on identifying, characterizing, and applying DNA as an enzyme (DNAzyme), using techniques and concepts from many disciplines including physical organic chemistry. More information about his lab can be found at the following URL: https://silverman.chemistry.illinois.edu/