William T. Wickner (born March 13, 1946), is an authority on membrane fusion, a fundamental process in all eukaryotic cells.
He conducted post-doctoral research with Arthur Kornberg at Stanford University, co-discovering the role of an RNA primer in the replication of DNA.
He began his independent research career as a Mellon senior fellow at Stanford in 1974, where he initiated studies of asymmetric membrane assembly in bacteria.
[citation needed] Wickner has trained many successful scientists including Franz-Ulrich Hartl, Gail Mandel, Pamela Silver, Gunnar von Heijne.
Wickner is also a foreign associate of the European Molecular Biology Organization and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences