Rate My Professor Sam Butcher

Samuel E. Butcher, known professionally as Sam Butcher, is the Steenbock Professor of Biomolecular Structure in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received his B.S. from the University of California, Davis, Ph.D. from the University of Vermont, and completed postdoctoral research with Juli Feigon at the University of California, Los Angeles. Butcher's research investigates the structure, function, and dynamics of RNA and RNA-protein complexes that regulate gene expression, employing NMR spectroscopy, X-ray crystallography, and cryo-electron microscopy. His lab focuses on spliceosome biogenesis, including U6 snRNP assembly and dynamics, and translational recoding events such as -1 programmed frameshifting in HIV and +1 frameshifting in the Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus, which mimics tRNA to recruit ribosomes.

Butcher's influential publications include 'The Molecular Interactions That Stabilize RNA Tertiary Structure' (Accounts of Chemical Research, 2011), 'Pseudoknots: RNA Structures with Diverse Functions' (Journal of Molecular Biology, 2005), 'Solution Structure of Poly(UG) RNA' (Journal of Molecular Biology, 2023), 'Architecture of the U6 snRNP Reveals Specific Recognition of 3′-End Processed U6 snRNA' (Nature Communications, 2018), and 'Structural and Mechanistic Basis for Preferential Deadenylation of U6 snRNA by Usb1' (Nucleic Acids Research, 2018). These works have advanced understanding of RNA recognition, splicing mechanisms, and viral translation strategies. As an educator, he has co-taught Biochemistry 501 for over 19 years, growing enrollment from 200 to more than 600 students per semester and pioneering lecture podcasts and videos. His honors include the 2020 Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award, the Steenbock Research Professorship (2021), and the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences Pound Research Award (2007).