| | 1 | Name: | Dr. Barry R. Bloom | | | Institution: | Harvard University | | | Year Elected: | 2004 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 209. Neurobiology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1937 | | | | | | |
Barry Bloom's passion has been to relate the cutting edge of biomedical science to the needs of the 85% of the world's people living in resource-poor developing countries. His initial research analyzed the complex mechanisms of the immune response by developing in vitro models, enabling him to discover the first lymphokine or cytokine, non-antibody products of activated lymphocytes that regulate the functions of the immune system and mediate inflammation, tissue damage and resistance to microbial infection. After teaching the first course on immunology in India, he began research on leprosy. With collaborators, he created the first DNA library containing all the genes of the leprosy and the tubercle bacilli, thereby ultimately enabling the complete genomes of these major pathogens of humans to be sequenced. Those libraries and the first monoclonal antibodies produced against these pathogens were given to the World Health Organization (WHO) to distribute free of charge to scientists all over the world, helping to stimulate a global effort against these diseases. He has more recently explored the genetic basis of resistance of experimental animals against tuberculosis which integrates knowledge of the host and pathogen in understanding the disease. When there was a serious increase in tuberculosis in the U.S. in the early 1990s his group established, against conventional wisdom, that active transmission of infection, rather than reactivation of old infections, was an important component of the epidemic. Such transmission required implementation of stringent public health measures. He has worked in an official capacity for the WHO for the past 37 years and has advised the National Institutes of Health, the National Academy of Sciences and the White House on scientific issues and on international health policies. Dr. Bloom is currently Dean of the Faculty of the Harvard School of Public Health. | |
| 2 | Name: | Dr. Laurie H. Glimcher | | | Institution: | Dana Farber Cancer Institute; Harvard Medical School | | | Year Elected: | 2019 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 209. Neurobiology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1951 | | | | | | |
Laurie H. Glimcher is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Richard and Susan Smith Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She earned her M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1976, where she spent most of her career, including as Irene Heinz Given Professor of Immunology.
Laurie Glimcher has elucidated the molecular pathways that regulate the development and activation of cells in the immune system - pathways critical for both the development of protective immunity and for the pathophysiologic immune responses underlying autoimmune, infectious, allergic, and malignant diseases. She discovered the first Th1-specific transcription factor, T-bet, and demonstrated that it is the master-regulator of Type 1 immunity in cells of both the adaptive and innate immune system. She also discovered XBP1, the first transcription factor required for both plasma cell differentiation and the Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) Stress Response. She then demonstrated a link between ER stress and proinflammatory/autoimmune diseases. Most recently she discovered that XBP1 is key in the maintenance of cancer stem cells in triple negative breast cancer. Further, IRE1/XBP1 also controls anti-tumor immunity by disrupting dendritic cell homeostasis. Hence reducing IRE1/XBP1 activity should simultaneously inhibit tumor cell growth and activate type 1 anti-tumor immunity.
She is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1996), the National Academy of Sciences (2002), and the American Association of Immunologists, (president, 2003-04). Laurie Glimcher was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2019. | |
| 3 | Name: | Dr. David H. Hubel | | | Institution: | Harvard University | | | Year Elected: | 1982 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 209. Neurobiology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1926 | | | Death Date: | September 22, 2013 | | | | | | |
David Hubel received the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with Torsten Wiesel, for his pioneering work on the functioning of the visual system of mammals. His studies have shown how the visual cortex develops physiologically and how it records what the eye sees. This work has led to new understanding and treatment of childhood eye afflictions and to studies of cortical plasticity. Born in Ontario, Canada in 1926, Dr. Hubel received his M.D. from McGill University in 1951. He worked at Johns Hopkins Hospital from 1952-59 and at Walter Reed Hospital, where he began comparing the activity of sensory cells in waking and sleeping animals. Dr. Hubel had been a member of the Harvard Medical School faculty since 1959 and was Research Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard University at the time of his death. David Hubel died September 22, 2013, at age 87, in Lincoln, Massachusetts. | |
| 4 | Name: | Dr. Seymour S. Kety | | | Institution: | Harvard University | | | Year Elected: | 1975 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 209. Neurobiology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1915 | | | Death Date: | May 25, 2000 | | | | |
| 5 | Name: | Dr. Sanford Louis Palay | | | Institution: | Harvard University & Boston College | | | Year Elected: | 1997 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 209. Neurobiology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1918 | | | Death Date: | August 5, 2002 | | | | |
| 6 | Name: | Dr. Jack L. Strominger | | | Institution: | Harvard University | | | Year Elected: | 1994 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 209. Neurobiology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1925 | | | | | | |
Jack Strominger, Higgins Professor of Biochemistry at Harvard University, has worked on the mode of action of penicillin and uncovered the molecular basis of its activity. In recent years, he has conducted research on the structure and function of human histocompatibility antigens: proteins on the surface of all cells that characterize the uniqueness of each individual and play an essential role in presenting peptides to the immune system. His early work involved isolating and characterizing these so called MH proteins. Dr. Strominger has also, along with Don Wiley, crystallized the molecule and determined its three dimensional structure to other cells in the immune system - a striking advance in our understanding of the molecular basis of immunology. His laboratory is currently focused on three main projects: the role of MHC proteins and of products of other disease susceptibility genes in human autoimmunity, including multiple sclerosis, diabetes, pemphigus vulgaris and ankylosing spondylitis; activating and inhibitory immunological synapses in human natural killer cells: how they are formed and how they function, particularly in relation to lipid rafts; and uterine decidual lymphocytes and their roles in the immunobiology of pregnancy. Having taught at Harvard University since 1968, Dr. Strominger has also served on the faculties of the Washington University School of Medicine (1948-51, 1955-64) and the University of Wisconsin Medical School (1964-68) and from 1951-54 worked as a senior assistant surgeon for the U.S. Public Health Service at the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases. His many awards include the National Academy of Sciences Award in Microbiology (1968), the Pasteur Medal (1990) the American Society for Microbiology's Hoechst-Roussel Award (1990), the Lasker Award (1995), the Paul Ehrlich Prize (1996), and the Japan Prize (1999. Dr. Strominger was elected to the membership of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 1968 and the National Academy of Sciences in 1970. | |
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