Stanley Fields is an American

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...

best known for developing the

yeast two hybrid Two-hybrid screening (originally known as yeast two-hybrid system or Y2H) is a molecular biology technique used to discover protein–protein interactions (PPIs) and protein–DNA interactions by testing for physical interactions (such as bindi ...

method for identifying protein–protein interactions. He is currently a professor of Genome Sciences at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

and

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, and previously served as chair of the Department of Genome Sciences.

Education

Fields was educated at the University of Cambridge where he was awarded a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

in 1981 for research carried out in the

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 ...

with Greg Winter and George Brownlee.

Research

Fields developed the yeast two-hybrid system in 1989, which has been widely used by Fields and others to identify protein-protein interactions in various organisms and biological contexts. Along with Matt Kaeberlein and Brian Kennedy, in later work Fields has carried out genome-wide screens for aging genes in yeast. Kaeberlein and co-workers have questioned the hypothesis that lifespan extension from caloric restriction is mediated by Sirtuins. Instead Kaeberlein, Fields, and Kennedy have proposed that caloric restriction increases lifespan by decreasing the activity of the Target of Rapamycin (TOR) kinase.

Honors and awards

*2003 Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine (jointly with Roger Brent)

References

1955 births Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Living people American molecular biologists American geneticists University of Washington faculty Howard Hughes Medical Investigators Helen Hay Whitney Foundation fellows {{US-biologist-stub