Mark A. Lemmon, PhD, Alfred Gilman Professor of Pharmacology, deputy director of Yale Cancer Center, and co-director of the Yale Cancer Biology Institute, has been named chair of Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Pharmacology, effective July 1, 2023.
Lemmon’s interdisciplinary research has contributed substantially to understanding how the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) signals at structural and mechanistic levels. Most recently, his lab’s work has focused on understanding how differential activation of the same growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase can promote different cell fates, underscoring the importance of signaling dynamics in defining cell fate and disease. He is also active in two of Yale’s Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPOREs) and collaborates on clinical research both at Yale and with colleagues at other academic health centers on such diseases as neuroblastoma, lung cancer, and head and neck cancer.
Recruited to Yale in 2015 to help build the Cancer Biology Institute (YCBI) at West Campus, Lemmon is implementing his vision of investigating networks at different scales that keep normal biology in check and have gone awry in cancer. He has recruited faculty spanning several departments with expertise in cell signaling, epitranscriptomics, quantitative proteomics, genome stability/DNA damage repair, and in vivo tumor initiation and evolution. At Yale Cancer Center, he has worked to recruit a cadre of physician scientists and to integrate the Cancer Center’s research programs and disease area research teams to stimulate the basic, clinical, and translational research communities.
As chair, Lemmon will actively promote diversity within the department and will build upon its current strong foundation by recruiting faculty with expertise in neuroscience, cardiovascular pharmacology, metabolism, immunology, systems pharmacology, computational studies, and chemical biology. He will seek to link the department with clinical activities and to foster connections with other initiatives across Yale.
After receiving his BA in biochemistry from the University of Oxford and his PhD in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale, Lemmon completed a postdoctoral fellowship in pharmacology at New York University Medical Center. Prior to returning to Yale, he was on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine for nearly 20 years, serving as chair of the Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics from 2008 to 2015. He also is chair of the editorial board of Biochemical Journal and was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society in 2016.
As chair, Lemmon will succeed Joseph Schessinger, PhD, who has led the Department of Pharmacology for more than two decades.
About Yale School of Medicine:
The school was established in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College. The current name, Yale School of Medicine, was adopted in 1918.
Milton C. Winternitz, who served as dean from 1920 to 1935, was the architect of the school’s unique educational philosophy, the Yale system of medical education, which emphasizes critical thinking in a nongraded, noncompetitive environment and requires students to write a thesis based on original research.
Harvey Cushing, widely regarded as the father of American neurosurgery and a seminal figure in American medicine, joined the faculty late in his career and donated his extensive collection of books to Yale. The medical school library, which bears his name, is regarded as one of the great medical historical libraries of the world.
YSM’s historical contributions to medicine include the first X-ray performed in the United States, the first successful use of penicillin in America, the first use of cancer chemotherapy, and the introduction of fetal heart monitoring, natural childbirth and newborn rooming-in. Yale doctors designed the first artificial heart pump and the first insulin infusion pump for diabetes, and it was here that the means of transmission of the polio virus was established, paving the way for the Salk vaccine. Lyme disease was identified by two Yale physicians in 1975.
More recent milestones include the first transgenic mouse, discovery of the mechanism of protein folding, which is key to understanding neurodegenerative diseases, and discovery of the mechanism of innate immunity, with major implications for infectious disease and cancer. Additional highlights include the first reliable method for early detection of autism and identification of genes associated with hypertension, macular degeneration, dyslexia, and Tourette’s syndrome, among many others.
Yale School of Medicine is one of the world’s leading centers for biomedical research, advanced clinical care, and medical education. It ranks eighth among medical schools receiving funds from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and sixth in NIH dollars per faculty member. More than 1,600 Yale physicians provide care to patients from across the region and around the world. The Yale system of medical education, with its emphasis on critical thinking and independent student research, has produced leaders in every field of academic medicine.
The sixth-oldest medical school in the United States, it was chartered by the Connecticut General Assembly in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College, located first on Grove Street, then at 150 York Street. Since 1924, it has occupied Sterling Hall of Medicine at 333 Cedar Street and surrounding buildings. It has awarded 9,394 medical degrees since 1814. There are 5,632 living alumni with MD degrees, 5,439 with MPH degrees, and 1,440 alumni of the Physician Associate Program with the PA-C certificate or MMSc degree, and 84 alumni of the Physician Assistant Online Program.
About Mark A Lemmon, FRS, PhD:
Mark Lemmon, PhD, FRS is the Alfred Gilman Professor of Pharmacology, Deputy Director of Yale Cancer Center, and Co-Director of Yale Cancer Biology Institute. He returned to Yale as the David A. Sackler Professor of Pharmacology in 2015 after 19 years on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. At Penn, he was the George W. Raiziss Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics as well as Chair of the department and an Investigator at the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute. Dr. Lemmon was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society (the UK’s national academy) in 2016, and has been honored with the Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin Award of the Protein Society and the Stanley N. Cohen Biomedical Research Award from the University of Pennsylvania. He is on the Editorial Advisory Boards of several journals, including Cell and Molecular Cell, and is Chair of the Editorial Board of the Biochemical Journal.
Dr. Lemmon’s research focuses on understanding the signaling networks controlled by receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) growth factors that, when mutated, cause cancers and other diseases. His laboratory combines biochemical, structural, biophysical, and cellular approaches to investigate how these networks function, and also collaborates with clinical groups to apply the mechanistic lessons learned to inhibitor choice and combating development of resistance to targeted therapies in the clinic.
Source:
News: https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/lemmon-will-be-the-next-chair-of-pharmacology/
Doctor: https://medicine.yale.edu/profile/mark-lemmon/
School: https://medicine.yale.edu/about/