Harvey F. Lodish
I’m still going strong! I married Pamela Chentow in 1963 and we have three married children – Heidi (born in 1966 and a social worker, Kenyon ‘89), Martin (1968, a high school physics and chemistry teacher and administrator) and Stephanie (1969, a pediatrician). We have seven grandchildren – Sophie (1997), Joshua (1998), and Tobias (2005) to Martin and Kristin; Emma (1999) and Andrew (2002) to Heidi and Eric Steinert (also Kenyon ’89), and Isaac (2000) and Violet (2004) to Stephanie and Bruce Peabody. I enjoy working out with my trainer; reading, writing, thinking, and talking; and traveling with Pam to rural areas of Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Borneo, Cambodia, Indonesia, China, Burma, Malaysia, etc.) I’m a member of the Appalachian Mountain Club 4000-foot club, having climbed on foot all 68 New England peaks over 4000 ft. high, and still enjoy hiking with my grandchildren and students.
I received my Ph.D. degree from the Rockefeller University in 1966; then did two years of postdoctoral research in Cambridge UK with the Nobelists Sydney Brenner and Francis Crick. I joined the faculty of the MIT Department of Biology in 1968, was promoted to Professor in 1976, and in 1983 a Founding Member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. I teach undergraduate and graduate courses in Cell Biology and Biotechnology. My main responsibility is to direct a research lab of 25 MDs, PhDs, and graduate students focusing on several aspects of the formation of blood cells, especially red blood cells, and also the formation and function of fat (adipose) cells. http://web.wi.mit.edu/lodish/
I had the honor of serving on the Kenyon Board of Trustees for 18 years, the last 5 as Chair of the Information Resources Committee. In the spring of 2012 I’ll return to Gambier to teach a two-week mini-seminar course on stem cells to 12 advanced students.
Since 2006 I’ve served as a member of the Board of Trustees of Children’s Hospital Boston, where I also serve as Chair the Board of Trustees Research Committee. I am the Founding Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, the group charged with oversight of the state’s 10- year $1 billion investment in the life sciences; I work closely with the governor and other leaders in state government to develop the biotech and pharmaceutical industries in the Commonwealth. I’ve helped start three now public biotech companies including Genzyme and have consulted widely in the industry.
Currently I’m a member of the advisory board of the California Institute of Technology Division of Biology, and in the past served on advisory panels for the NIH and American Cancer Society, the University of Basle, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, and the PEW Scholars Program in Biomedical Sciences. I chaired advisory boards at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and the Cleveland Clinic Research Institute.
During 2004 I served as President of the American Society for Cell Biology. Since 1986 I’ve been the lead author of the textbook Molecular Cell Biology, now in its sixth edition and translated into 10 languages. Together with my six co-authors I’m currently writing the 7th edition, due in 2012.