Richard A. Jorgensen (born 1951) is an American molecular geneticist and an early pioneer in the study of post transcriptional gene silencing.
Their initial observations were made while working at the U.S. biotech company DNA Plant Technology and form part of the basis of a number of U.S. patents on gene regulation and crop manipulation.
Together with William Lucas at UC Davis and others he proposed the existence of an RNA Information Superhighway in plants by which information is transmitted throughout the plant via RNA molecules which influence gene expression and epigenetic state[2] Jorgensen was awarded the 2007 Martin Gibbs Medal by the American Society of Plant Biologists "for his pioneering work leading to the discovery of RNA interference (RNAi).
From 2007 to 2009 he was director of the iPlant Collaborative, a 5-year, $50 million project to develop cyberinfrastructure for the plant sciences.
According to the US National Science Foundation (NSF) awarding agency, this was "the first national cyberinfrastructure center to tackle global "grand challenge" plant biology questions that have great implications on larger questions regarding the environment, agriculture, energy and the very organisms that sustain our existence on earth".