Marlene Belfort (born 1945) is an American biochemist known for her research on the factors that interrupt genes and proteins.
[4][3] Belfort's early research was on a gene involved in thymidylate synthase in the bacteria Escherichia coli.
[8] Prior to her research, this junk DNA was only known to occur in more complex organisms.
[1] Her research then determined that the gene of the T4 phage was processed by RNA in a mechanism known as splicing[9][10] and was excised from the transcript during processing in the cell,[11] and led to the observation that the processing of the T4 phage RNA is similar to the splicing pathway used by eukaryotes[12][13] Her work subsequently showed that the introns move to different places within a bacterial genome[14][15] and she was able to determine the mechanism guiding this movement of genetic material.
[16][17] Her most recent research also includes self-cleaving inteins, which are protein-splicing elements.