Mahoney Lecture Features Dr. Richard Morimoto On Protein Misfolding, Neurodegenerative Disease
Richard I. Morimoto is the Bill and Gayle Cook Professor of Biology, Professor of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology, and Director of the Rice Institute for Biomedical Research at Northwestern University. He holds a B.S. from the University of Illinois at Chicago, received a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Chicago in 1978, and did postdoctoral research at Harvard University. In 1982, Morimoto joined the faculty of the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Cell Biology at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL.
Morimoto served as Dean of the Graduate School and Associate Provost of Graduate Education from 1998 to 2004, and previously as Chair of the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Cell Biology (1993-1998). He directed the undergraduate biology program and had leadership roles in the formation of the Interdepartmental Biological Sciences Graduate Program and the Medical Scientist Training Program. Morimoto is an active member of the Northwestern community and has served on university-wide committees including the Task Force on the Undergraduate Experience, the Task Force on Ph.D. Programs, and the Committee on Asian American Studies, Advisory Board for the Center for Genetic Medicine, Advisory Board for the Office of Research, and co-Chairs the Life and Biomedical Sciences Planning Group. He also directed the Weinberg College Scholars Program -- a highly selective honors program initiated four years ago to provide individualized education to the College's most talented undergraduates involved in independent study and scholarly research.
On the national level, Morimoto has served on numerous editorial boards, the NIH Molecular Biology Study Section, the NIGMS Molecular and Cellular Basis of Disease Panel, the AAAS Scientific Program Committee, the Beckman Scholars Advisory Panel, and is currently on the National Institute for General Medical Sciences Advisory Board and actively involved with assessment of minority training programs.
Morimoto is widely recognized for his research on the regulation of the heat shock stress response and the function of molecular chaperones. His current research is to understand how organisms sense and respond to physiologic and environmental stress through the activation of genetic pathways that integrate stress responses with molecular and cellular responses that determine cell growth and cell death. The stress of misfolded and damaged proteins influences neuronal function and lifespan at the level of the organism. Consequently, these studies provide a molecular basis to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases including Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease, ALS, and Alzheimer's disease. His laboratory has published over 190 papers including three monographs including two books on the Heat Shock Response and Molecular Chaperones from Cold Spring Harbor Press. During that period he received a MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health and has been supported by the grants from the National Institutes for General Medical Science, National Institutes of Aging, National Institutes for Neurological Diseases and Stroke, American Cancer Society, Huntington Disease Society of America, the Hereditary Disease Foundation, and the ALS Association. In addition to giving frequent talks at universities and scientific symposia throughout the world, he has been a Visiting Professor at the Technion University in Israel, Osaka University, Kyoto University, University of Rome, Peking University, Abo Academi in Finland, and Ecole Normale Superieur in Paris.
Page last updated Sep 26, 2008
