Ron Konopka

Ronald J. Konopka (1947-2015) was an American geneticist who studied chronobiology. He made his most notable contribution to the field while working with Drosophila in the lab of Seymour Benzer at the California Institute of Technology. During this work, Konopka discovered the period (per) gene, which controls the period of circadian rhythms.

Academic career

Ron Konopka received his Ph.D. in Biology from the California Institute of Technology in 1972. In 1975, following his discovery of the period mutants, Konopka was awarded a faculty position at the California Institute of Technology. While there, Konopka's colleagues were critical of his reluctance to publish his work on the period gene, and Konopka was denied tenure. After his stay at Caltech, Konopka accepted a position at Clarkson University but was again denied tenure and subsequently exited the field of science. Konopka's career, interwoven with the work of his mentor, Seymour Benzer, and the other scientists working in Benzer's lab is narrated in Time, Love, Memory by Jonathan Weiner.