Rate My Professor Monica Pillon

Monica Pillon, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Structural Biology in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo, where she has been appointed since 2024. She earned her PhD in Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences from McMaster University in 2014, followed by a fellowship at McMaster University in 2015 and a fellowship at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS/NIH) in 2020. Prior to her current role, Pillon served as Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Baylor College of Medicine from 2021 to 2024. Her multidisciplinary research program combines RNA-protein biochemistry, enzymology, structural biology techniques such as cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) and X-ray crystallography, and cell biology to investigate the mechanisms governing human ribonucleases in RNA processing and decay pathways. These studies address how ribonucleases maintain cellular homeostasis and contribute to gene expression dysregulation in disease, with expertise in gene expression, metalloenzymes, mitochondria, molecular and cellular biology, molecular basis of disease, protein function and structure, RNA, and structural biology.