Charles Nicholas Serhan is the Simon Gelman Professor of Anaesthesia (Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology) at

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area, Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is the third oldest medical school in the Un ...

and a professor of Oral Medicine, Infection and Immunity at

Harvard School of Dental Medicine The Harvard School of Dental Medicine (HSDM) is the dental school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to the DMD degree, HSDM offers specialty training programs, advanced train ...

. Serhan is the Director of the Center for Experimental Therapeutics and Reperfusion Injury at

Brigham and Women's Hospital Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH or The Brigham) is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and the largest hospital in the Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. Along with Massachusetts General Hospital, it is one of the two ...

Education

Serhan completed his Bachelor of Science in biochemistry at

State University of New York at Stony Brook Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public university, public research university in Stony Brook, New York, United States, on Long Island. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is on ...

in 1978. In 1982, Serhan earned a doctorate in Experimental Pathology and Medical Sciences from New York University School of Medicine. Following his graduation, Serhan began a postdoctoral fellowship at the

Karolinska Institute The Karolinska Institute (KI; ; sometimes known as the (Royal) Caroline Institute in English) is a research-led medical university in Solna within the Stockholm urban area of Sweden and one of the foremost medical research institutes globally ...

in Stockholm, Sweden under the mentorship of

Bengt Samuelsson Bengt Ingemar Samuelsson (21 May 1934 – 5 July 2024) was a Swedish biochemist. He shared with Sune K. Bergström and John R. Vane the 1982 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discoveries concerning prostaglandins and related substance ...

. Serhan has also received honorary degrees from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

University College Dublin University College Dublin (), commonly referred to as UCD, is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a collegiate university, member institution of the National University of Ireland. With 38,417 students, it is Ireland's largest ...

, and Queen Mary College, University of London.

Career

The focus of Serhan's research are Specialized Pro-Resolving Mediators (SPMs), which are "inflammation-fighting molecules in the body derived from essential fatty acids". While working with Mats Hamberg and Bengt Samuelsson at the Karolinska Institute, Serhan helped discover lipoxin the first of the SPMs to be elucidated. Since this initial discovery, Serhan has identified additional mediators including Resolvins, Maresins, and Protectins. Serhan became a faculty member at Harvard Medical School in 1987 and the Director of the Center for Experimental Therapeutics and Reperfusion Injury at Brigham and Women's Hospital (CET&RI). The CET&RI's mission is: "To identify novel mediators, pathways, and their cellular receptors and targets critical in promoting resolution of inflammation and reperfusion tissue injury and establish their relation to human disease".

Awards and honors

Serhan was awarded the John Vane Medal from The William Harvey Research Institute in 2008. In 2016, he received the Ross Prize in Molecular Medicine. He was awarded the International Eicosanoid Research Foundation's 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award. Serhan was the American Society for Investigative Pathology (ASIP) Rous-Whipple Award recipient in 2018 and became an Honorary Life Member of the Society for Leukocyte Biology in 2019. In 2022, Serhan delivered the Hans L. Falk Memorial Lecture at the

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) conducts research into the effects of the environment on human disease, as one of the 27 institutes and centers of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is located in the Rese ...

References

External links

Serhan Lab Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Serhan, Charles N. Harvard Medical School faculty Stony Brook University faculty Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American anesthesiologists New York University Grossman School of Medicine alumni