Stuart Orkin

Stuart H. Orkin is an American physician, stem cell biologist and researcher in pediatric hematology-oncology. He is the David G. Nathan Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and is the chairman of pediatric oncology at the Dana–Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. Orkin's research has focused on the genetic basis of blood disorders. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine.

Early life

Orkin grew up in Manhattan, where his father was a urologist. He studied biology as an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned a medical degree from Harvard Medical School. He did postdoctoral research in molecular biology at the National Institutes of Health under geneticist Philip Leder. While Orkin was completing his training in hematology-oncology, his department chair, David G. Nathan, allowed him to establish his own research laboratory.^[1]

Career

Orkin is the David G. Nathan Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and chairs the Department of Pediatric Oncology at the Dana–Farber/Harvard Cancer Center.^[2] He has been on the Harvard Medical School faculty since the late 1970s and has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator since 1986.^[3][4]

In the 1970s and 1980s, Orkin conducted research that identified genetic mutations associated with a group of blood disorders known as the thalassemias.^[5] Later, he and his team cloned a gene causing chronic granulomatous disease, marking the first time that a disease-causing gene was cloned without the researchers already knowing the protein coded by the gene.^[5] Today, his research lab examines transcriptional regulators of cell specification and differentiation.^[6] In September 2015, Orkin published a study in the journal Nature showing a small section of DNA which could be responsive to gene therapy for sickle-cell disease.^[7]

Honors and awards

In 1987, Orkin received the E. Mead Johnson Award.^[8] Elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1991, Orkin won the Jessie Stevenson Kovalenko Medal from that organization in 2013.^[9] He was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 1992.^[10] In 1993, he received the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize.^[11] The American Society of Hematology named Orkin one of its Legends in Hematology in 2008.^[12] The American Society of Human Genetics honored Orkin with the 2014 William Allan Award, which recognizes sustained and significant contributions to human genetics.^[5]

Personal

Orkin has been married for more than 40 years and has one daughter.^[1]

References