BACKGROUND So I'm a biochemistry grad student at UW-Madison, where I study structure-function relationships of RNA polymerase, the enzyme responsible for catalyzing transcription. Transcription is the first step in gene expression in ALL LIFE and copies the genetic code from the gene on DNA into a molecule of RNA. This RNA can then be read by the ribosome to be translated into the protein code to make a protein. I've been studying transcription by assembling paused complexes of ...