Suzanne Ruth Pfeffer is an American neuroscientist who is a professor at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

. Her research investigates the molecular mechanisms that cause receptors to be transported between membrane compartments in cells, and she is an expert in Rab GTPases and the molecular basis of inherited

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a neurodegenerative disease primarily of the central nervous system, affecting both motor system, motor and non-motor systems. Symptoms typically develop gradually and non-motor issues become ...

. She is a Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the American Society for Cell Biology. She is the editor-in-chief, editor of the ''Annual Review of Biochemistry''.

Early life and education

Pfeffer has said that she became interested in human physiology as a child. She was an undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, where she became interested in biochemistry. She worked with Michael Chamberlin (biologist), Michael Chamberlin on binding of ''Escherichia coli'' polymerase to T7 DNA polymerase. She moved to the University of California, San Francisco for her graduate studies, where she worked with Regis B. Kelly on synaptic vessels. Her doctoral research investigated the role of coated vesicles in intracellular transport.

Research and career

After her PhD, she moved to

as a Hay Whitney postdoctoral fellow, where she worked with James Rothman on Golgi cell, Golgi transport. Pfeffer set up her own research program at Stanford University, where she was the first woman to be appointed to the department of biochemistry. Her research investigates the fundamental mechanisms of membrane trafficking.

Selected publications

* ''Biosynthetic protein transport and sorting by the endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi'' * '' "Rab9 functions in transport between late endosomes and the trans Golgi network'' * ''Rab GTPases: specifying and deciphering organelle identity and function''

Awards and honors

* 1992 Elected Fellow of the

* 2003 President of the American Society for Cell Biology * 2010 President of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology * 2013 Elected to the

* 2017 Elected Fellow of the American Society for Cell Biology * 2024 Elected member of the National Academy of Sciences * 2025 Elected Fellow of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pfeffer, Suzanne Living people American women neuroscientists University of California, Berkeley alumni University of California, San Francisco alumni Stanford University faculty Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science American neuroscientists Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the American Society for Cell Biology 20th-century American biologists 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American biologists 21st-century American women scientists Year of birth missing (living people) Annual Reviews (publisher) editors