Iva Susan Greenwald is an American biologist who is Professor of Cell and Molecular Biology at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. She studies cell-cell interactions and cell fate specification in ''

C. elegans ''Caenorhabditis elegans'' () is a free-living transparent nematode about 1 mm in length that lives in temperate soil environments. It is the type species of its genus. The name is a blend of the Greek ''caeno-'' (recent), ''rhabditis'' ( ...

''. She is particularly interested in LIN-12/Notch proteins, which are the receptor of one of the major signalling systems that determine the fate of cells.

Early life and education

Greenwald joined MIT as a graduate student in 1977. She was trained in the classics of molecular biology and developmental genetics. That year, H. Robert Horvitz joined the faculty at MIT, and convinced her to investigate ''

''. She started working on genetics, and functional redundancy cell-lineage mutants. She moved to the

MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology The Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) is a research institute in Cambridge, England, involved in the revolution in molecular biology which occurred in the 1950–60s. Since then it has remained a major medical r ...

in 1983 where she worked alongside

Jonathan Hodgkin Jonathan Alan Hodgkin (born 1949) is a British biochemist. He is the Professor of Genetics at the University of Oxford and an emeritus fellow of Keble College, Oxford. Education Hodgkin was educated at the University of Oxford where he graduat ...

Gary Ruvkun Gary Bruce Ruvkun (born March 26, 1952) is an American molecular biologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School in Boston. Ruvkun discovered the mechanism by which '' lin-4'', the first microRN ...

and

Victor Ambros Victor R. Ambros (born December 1, 1953) is an American developmental biologist who discovered the first known microRNA (miRNA). He is a professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He completed both his undergraduate and doct ...

, who encouraged her to try to clone LIN-12. It took her two years to develop a strategy to clone LIN-12 (Tc''1'' transposon tagging), and she identified that that genetic sequence contained epidermal growth factor (EGF) motifs. These investigations were amongst the first to show that worm developmental genes could be cloned, and that aspects of these genes were homologous to human proteins.

Research and career

In 1986, Greenwald joined the faculty at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

. She moved to

in 1993 and became made professor two years later. Greenwald dedicated her career to understanding the mechanisms that underpin the LIN-12/Notch signalling system. LIN-12/Notch proteins mediate cell-cell interactions. Amongst these processes, Greenwald studies the role of LIN-12/Notich in binary regulation, feedback mechanisms and signal transduction. She has identified new genes that are involved with the modulation of LIN-12/Notch in development and disease.

Awards and honors

* 1983 Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund Postdoctoral Fellow * 1986 NIH Postdoctoral Fellow * 1987 Searle Scholar * 1988 DuPont Young Faculty Award * 1994

Howard Hughes Medical Institute The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland with additional facilities in Ashburn, Virginia. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American busin ...

Investigator * 1998 Metropolitan Life Foundation Promising Investigator Award * 2005 Elected to 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 ...

* 2005 Elected to the

U.S. National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, 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 Natio ...

* 2012 Ellison Medical Research Foundation Senior Scholar Award * 2025

Wiley Prize The Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences is intended to recognize breakthrough research in pure or applied life science research that is distinguished by its excellence, originality and impact on our understanding of biological systems and processes. ...

in Biomedical Sciences.Wiley Prize 2025
/ref>

Selected publications

* * *

Personal life

Greenwald is married to Gary Struhl, with whom she has a daughter.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Greenwald, Iva American women biologists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Columbia University faculty 21st-century American women