| Alan Garen | |
| Birth Date: | March 26, 1926 |
| Birth Place: | United States |
| Death Place: | New Haven, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Field: | Genetics |
| Work Institution: | Yale University |
| Education: | University of Colorado |
| Doctoral Advisor: | Theodore T. Puck |
| Known For: | Discovery of stop codons |
Alan Garen was an American geneticist who co-discovered suppressor mutations for tRNA. The Garen lab also showed that certain triplet codons (5'-UAG, 5'-UAA, and 5'-UGA) failed to bind amino acids.[1] Thus, the Garen lab and Brenner labs are both credited with discovery of the stop codons of the genetic code.[2]
Garen was a professor at Yale University between 1963 and 2021.[3] He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.