“During his more than 20 years at Einstein, Jonathan Backer has had an outstanding career as both a researcher and mentor,” said Allen Spiegel, M.D., The Marilyn and Stanley M. Katz Dean. “Jon is eminently qualified to succeed Susan and Charlie, who have given Einstein many years of outstanding service as co-chairs of the department.”
In taking over as chair of molecular pharmacology, Dr. Backer will relinquish his position as director of the Belfer Institute for Advanced Biomedical Studies, which integrates all postdoctoral training programs at Einstein. A successor has not yet been named.
Dr. Backer graduated from Harvard College in 1979. After receiving his M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School, he served as a research fellow at Boston’s Joslin Diabetes Center before becoming an instructor in medicine at Harvard. Dr. Backer joined the Einstein faculty in 1993 as an assistant professor of molecular pharmacology, was promoted to professor in 2002, and was named director of the Belfer Institute in 2008.
Dr. Backer’s research focuses on a group of enzymes called phosphoinositide (PI) 3-kinases. These enzymes sense when certain cell-surface receptors (including tyrosine kinase and G-protein coupled receptors) receive signals and then relay those signals into the cell. This makes the PI 3-kinases important regulators of key cellular processes such as proliferation, motility, apoptosis, vesicular trafficking and insulin signaling. Mutations that activate PI 3-kinases are linked to the genesis and spread of several types of human cancers.
Dr. Backer studies the molecular mechanisms that regulate PI 3-kinase activity and the role of PI 3-kinases in the aberrant intracellular signaling involved in diabetes, cancer and aging. As principal or co-principal investigator, he is currently supported by a National Institutes of Health (NIH) program project grant and two NIH R01 grants. Dr. Backer’s work is also supported by an Innovation Award from the American Diabetes Association and by the Department of Defense’s Prostate Cancer Research Program.
At Einstein, Dr. Backer has served on the MSTP (M.D.-Ph.D. program) steering committee and the Sue Golding Graduate admissions committee, and has chaired both the qualifying exam committee and the faculty promotion committee. He has served as course leader for Signal Transduction and Hormone Action in the graduate school since 2004. He is a member of the American Society for Cell Biology and the American Diabetes Association, has served on 17 study sections and review panels for the NIH, and is currently a regular member of the Membrane Biology and Protein Processing study section. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Biological Chemistry and Biochemical Journal.
When Dr. Backer formally assumes his new post, Drs. Horwitz and Rubin will return to their laboratories to resume their research fulltime.
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About Albert Einstein College of MedicineAlbert Einstein College of Medicine is one of the nation’s premier centers for research, medical education and clinical investigation. During the 2014-2015 academic year, Einstein is home to 742 http://www.einstein.yu.edu/education/md-program/md-program.aspx?id=11144 students, 212 Ph.D. students, 102 students in the combined M.D./Ph.D. program, and 292 postdoctoral research fellows. The College of Medicine has more than 2,000 full-time faculty members located on the main campus and at its clinical affiliates. In 2014, Einstein received $158 million in awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This includes the funding of major research centers at Einstein in aging, intellectual development disorders, diabetes, cancer, clinical and translational research, liver disease, and AIDS. Other areas where the College of Medicine is concentrating its efforts include developmental brain research, neuroscience, cardiac disease, and initiatives to reduce and eliminate ethnic and racial health disparities. Its partnership with Montefiore Medical Center, the University Hospital and academic medical center for Einstein, advances clinical and translational research to accelerate the pace at which new discoveries become the treatments and therapies that benefit patients. Through its extensive affiliation network involving Montefiore, Jacobi Medical Center—Einstein’s founding hospital, and three other hospital systems in the Bronx, Brooklyn and on Long Island, Einstein runs one of the largest residency and fellowship training programs in the medical and dental professions in the United States. For more information, please visit www.einstein.yu.edu, read our blog, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and view us on YouTube.
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