Aaron J. Shatkin (18 July 1934 – 4 June 2012) was an American professor and director of the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine at

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

and a scientist at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He was known for his work as a virologist studying

reoviruses ''Sedoreoviridae'' (''sedo'' = smooth) is a family of the ''Reovirales'' order of viruses. Viruses in this family are distinguished by the absence of a turreted protein on the inner capsid to produce a smooth surface. Taxonomy The family contain ...

Education

Shatkin graduated from ''summa cum laude''

Bowdoin College Bowdoin College ( ) is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine. It was chartered in 1794. The main Bowdoin campus is located near Casco Bay and the Androscoggin River. In a ...

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

in 1956. He earned a PhD from

The Rockefeller University The Rockefeller University is a private biomedical research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and provides doctoral and postdoctoral education. It is classifi ...

in 1961, working in the laboratory of

Edward Tatum Edward Lawrie Tatum (December 14, 1909 – November 5, 1975) was an American geneticist. He shared half of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1958 with George Beadle for showing that genes control individual steps in metabolism. The o ...

studying ''

Neurospora crassa ''Neurospora crassa'' is a type of red bread mold of the phylum Ascomycota. The genus name, meaning 'nerve spore' in Greek, refers to the characteristic striations on the spores. The first published account of this fungus was from an infestatio ...

''.

Career

Shatkin began studying reoviruses as a postdoctoral fellow at the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...

with Norman Salzman. He then opened his own laboratory at the

Roche Institute of Molecular Biology The Roche Institute of Molecular Biology was created on July 14, 1967 when John Burns, then the vice president of research at Hoffman-La Roche, persuaded biochemist Sidney Udenfriend to leave the National Institutes of Health and help him create a ...

Nutley, New Jersey Nutley is a Township (New Jersey), township in Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 30,143, an increase of 1,773 (+6.2%) from the 2010 United ...

, studying mRNA in reoviruses. In 1985, he moved to Rutgers University, where he was a University Professor of Molecular Biology. He was the founding director of the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine at Rutgers and a scientist at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Shatkin was elected to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

in 1981. He was also an elected fellow of the

American Academy of Microbiology American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

, the

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 ...

and 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 ...

. He was the founding editor-in-chief of the ''Journal of Molecular and Cellular Biology''.

Personal life

Shatkin died of cancer at his home in

Scotch Plains, New Jersey Scotch Plains is a Township (New Jersey), township in Union County, New Jersey, Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The township is located on a ridge in North Jersey, northern-central Jersey, central New Jersey, within the Raritan R ...

. He was predeceased in 2009 by his wife, Joan, whom he was married to for 52 years. They had one son.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shatkin, Aaron 1934 births 2012 deaths Bowdoin College alumni Rockefeller University alumni Rutgers University faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science American virologists People from Scotch Plains, New Jersey