Anne Donaldson is Professor of Chromosome Biology at the University of Aberdeen Institute of Medical Sciences. She investigates the molecular mechanisms that regulate DNA replication initiation, bridging our understanding of in vivo effects with knowledge of DNA replication molecular mechanisms. The contributions of Anne’s research group to understanding DNA replication include the first accurate map of replication initiation sites in a eukaryote, and identification of the Elg1 Replication Factor C-like complex as the major unloader of the eukaryotic replicative polymerase clamp. Anne’s recent work has uncovered the mechanism through which the protein Rif1 controls DNA replication initiation by directing Protein Phosphatase 1 to counteract kinase-mediated activation of the major replicative helicase (the MCM complex). With Joe Yeeles’s group at the LMB, Anne is working to understand the biochemical principles though which the Rif1-Protein Phosphatase 1 complex controls initiation at specific replication origin sites. The aim is to connect structural understanding of the Rif1 protein with in vivo effects on DNA replication.