Biography
Alexander J. Varshavsky ( Russian : Александр Яковлевич Варшавский; born 1946 in Moscow ) is a Russian-American biochemist and geneticist . He works at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) as the Morgan Professor of Biology. Varshavsky left Russia in 1977, emigrating to United States . His laboratory, initially at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , and later at Caltech, has discovered, during the 1980s, the first degradation signals ( degrons ) in short-lived proteins and biological fundamentals of the ubiquitin system. His current research continues to focus on the ubiquitin system and N-degron pathways. Varshavsky received a B.S. degree from the Moscow University (Russia) (1970) and Ph.D. from the Institute of Molecular Biology, Moscow, Russia (1973). From 1973-1977, he worked as a Junior Scientist at the Moscow's Institute of Molecular Biology, before becoming a faculty member at MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA (1977-1991). From 1992 to 2016, he worked as the Howard Smits Professor of Cell Biology at the Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), in Pasadena, CA. Since 2017, he is the Thomas Hunt Morgan Professor of Biology at Caltech. [ 1 ]
About the Lasker Award
The Lasker Awards have been awarded annually since 1946 to living persons who have made major contributions to medical science or who have performed public service on behalf of medicine. They are administered by the Lasker Foundation, founded by advertising pioneer Albert Lasker and his wife Mary Woodard Lasker (a medical research activist). The awards are sometimes referred to as "America's Nobels."
Quick Facts
- Award: Lasker Award - Basic Medical Research
- Added: 2026-02-07
- Source: Wikipedia
- Established: 1946
- Presented by: Lasker Foundation