The MIT Department of Biology ("Course VII") is a center for research and teaching in the life sciences. Many members of the faculty hold joint appointments with other departments at MIT and with outside institutions.

Faculty members

faculty members include:

Full Professors

Angelika Amon Angelika Amon (January 10, 1967 – October 29, 2020) was an Austrian American molecular and cell biologist, and the Kathleen and Curtis Marble Professor in Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massach ...

* Tania A. Baker *

David Bartel David P. Bartel is an American molecular biologist best known for his work on microRNAs. Bartel is a Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Member of the Whitehead Institute, and investigator of the Howard Hughes Medic ...

* Stephen P. Bell * Christopher Burge * Iain Cheeseman
Jianzhu Chen
* Cathy Drennan * Gerald Fink * Frank Gertler * Alan Grossman * Leonard P. Guarente *

H. Robert Horvitz Howard Robert Horvitz ForMemRS NAS AAA&S APS NAM (born May 8, 1947) is an American biologist best known for his research on the nematode worm ''Caenorhabditis elegans'', for which he was awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, t ...

, S.B. 1968
David HousmanRichard Hynes
* Barbara Imperiali *

Tyler Jacks Tyler Jacks is a David H. Koch Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a long-time HHMI investigator, and Founding Director of the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, which brings together bio ...

Rudolf Jaenisch Rudolf Jaenisch (born April 22, 1942) is a Professor of Biology at MIT and a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. He is a pioneer of transgenic science, in which an animal’s genetic makeup is altered. Jaenisch ...

Chris KaiserAmy KeatingMonty Krieger
* Eric S. Lander
Michael T. LaubJacqueline LeesJ. Troy Littleton
* Harvey F. Lodish *

David C. Page David C. Page (born 1956) is an American biologist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the director of the Whitehead Institute, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator. He is best known for his work ...

Uttam RajBhandaryPeter Reddien
* Aviv Regev * David M. Sabatini * Robert T. Sauer
Thomas Schwartz
*

Phillip A. Sharp Phillip Allen Sharp (born June 6, 1944) is an American geneticist and molecular biologist who co-discovered RNA splicing. He shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Richard J. Roberts for "the discovery that genes in eukaryo ...

Anthony Sinskey
* Hazel Sive
Frank Solomon
* Lisa Steiner * Susumu Tonegawa
Matthew Vander HeidenGraham Walker
* Robert A. Weinberg, Ph.D. 1969 * Michael B. Yaffe * Richard A. Young

Associate professors

* Laurie Boyer
Mary GehringMichael HemannAdam C. Martin

Assistant professors

Eliezer CaloJoseph H. DavisAnkur JainRebecca LamasonGene-Wei LiPulin LiSebastian LouridoStefani SprangerJing-Ke WengSeychelle VosOmer Yilmaz

Professors with primary appointments in other departments

* Sallie (Penny) Chisholm
Douglas Lauffenburger
* Elly Nedivi
Matthew Wilson

Professors emeriti

* Martha Constantine-Paton * Malcolm Gefter * Nancy Hopkins
Jonathan King
*

Terry Orr-Weaver Terry L. Orr-Weaver is an American molecular biologist in the MIT Department of Biology with a joint appointment to the Whitehead Institute. She does research on developmental biology, with a focus on " ordination of cell growth and division with ...

* Mary-Lou Pardue * Sheldon Penman * Phillips Robbins * Robert Rosenberg * Leona D. Samson *

Paul Schimmel Paul Reinhard Schimmel (born August 4, 1940) is an American biophysical chemist and translational medicine pioneer. Career Paul Schimmel is a Professor of Molecular Medicine at The Scripps Research Institute. Prior to joining The Scripps Resear ...

* Edward Scolnick * Ethan Signer * JoAnne Stubbe
William (Chip) Quinn

Department Heads

* 1889-1921 William T. Sedgwick * 1921-1942 Samuel C. Prescott * 1942-1955 Francis O. Schmitt * 1957-1966 Irwin W. Sizer * 1966-1977

Boris Magasanik Boris Magasanik (December 19, 1919December 25, 2013) was a microbiologist and biochemist who was the Jacques Monod Professor Emeritus of Microbiology in the Department of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After moving from Harv ...

* 1977-1985 Gene M. Brown * 1985-1989

Maurice Fox Maurice Fox (14 January 1898 in Ukraine, Russian Empire – 25 June 1988 in Montreal) was a Canadian chess master. He won the Canadian Chess Championship eight times, and is tied for the most Canadian titles with Abe Yanofsky. Biography At ...

* 1989-1991 Richard O. Hynes * 1991-1999

Phillip Sharp Phillip Allen Sharp (born June 6, 1944) is an American geneticist and molecular biologist who co-discovered RNA splicing. He shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Richard J. Roberts for "the discovery that genes in eukaryo ...

* 1999-2004 Robert T. Sauer * 2004-201
Chris Kaiser
* 2012-2014 Tania Baker * 2014- Alan Grossman

Alumni

Alumni of the department include:

Nobel laureates

The department can claim several winners of the

Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, according ...

among its faculty and alumni. They are: *

Michael Rosbash Michael Morris Rosbash (born March 7, 1944) is an American geneticist and chronobiologist. Rosbash is a professor and researcher at Brandeis University and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Rosbash's research group cloned the ...

, 2017 *

Andrew Fire Andrew Zachary Fire (born April 27, 1959) is an American biologist and professor of pathology and of genetics at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with Craig C. Mello ...

, 2006 *

, 2002 *

Leland H. Hartwell Leland Harrison (Lee) Hartwell (born October 30, 1939 in Los Angeles, California) is former president and director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington. He shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine wit ...

, 2001 *

, 1993 * E. Donnall Thomas, 1990 * Susumu Tonegawa, 1987 *

David Baltimore David Baltimore (born March 7, 1938) is an American biologist, university administrator, and 1975 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. He is President Emeritus and Distinguished Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technol ...

, 1975 *

Salvador Luria Salvador Edward Luria (August 13, 1912 – February 6, 1991) was an Italian microbiologist, later a Naturalized citizen of the United States#Naturalization, naturalized U.S. citizen. He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1969, with ...

, 1969 *

Har Gobind Khorana Har Gobind Khorana (9 January 1922 – 9 November 2011) was an Indian American biochemist. While on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he shared the 1968 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Marshall W. Nirenberg and ...

, 1968

Former faculty

Former faculty include: * Gene Brown *

Arnold Demain Arnold L. Demain (April 26, 1927 – April 3, 2020) was an American microbiologist. During his 60-year career, he gained a reputation in the field of industrial microbiology. He was the Professor of Industrial Microbiology in the Biology De ...

* Herman Eisen *

Vernon Ingram Vernon Martin Ingram, (May 19, 1924 – August 17, 2006) was a German–American professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Biography Ingram was born in Breslau as Werner Adolf Martin Immerwahr, Lower Silesia. When he ...

Susan Lindquist Susan Lee Lindquist, ForMemRS (June 5, 1949 – October 27, 2016) was an American professor of biology at MIT specializing in molecular biology, particularly the protein folding problem within a family of molecules known as heat-shock proteins ...

* Irving London *

Alexander Rich Alexander Rich (15 November 1924 – 27 April 2015) was an American biologist and biophysicist. He was the William Thompson Sedgwick Professor of Biophysics at MIT (since 1958) and Harvard Medical School. Rich earned an A.B. ('' magna cum l ...

Other notable alumni

Other notable alumni include *

Victor Ambros Victor R. Ambros (born 1953, Hanover, New Hampshire) is an American developmental biologist who discovered the first known microRNA (miRNA). He is a professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts. Back ...

, Ph.D., 1979 *

Cornelia Bargmann Cornelia Isabella "Cori" Bargmann (born January 1, 1961) is an American neurobiologist. She is known for her work on the genetic and neural circuit mechanisms of behavior using ''C. elegans'', particularly the mechanisms of olfaction in the worm. ...

, Ph.D., 1987 * Kevin Eggan, Ph.D., 2002 * Stephen J. Elledge, Ph.D., 1983 *

, Ph.D., 1983 *

, Ph.D., 1964 * Richard O. Hynes, Ph.D., 1971 * Cynthia Kenyon, Ph.D., 1979 *

, Ph.D., 1970 * Allan C. Spradling, Ph.D., 1975

References

{{MITtemplate Biology Department