Endocrine Abstracts

Mitchell A Lazar

Dr Mitchell Lazar is the Sylvan Eisman Professor of Medicine and Genetics, the Chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism, and the Director of the Institute for Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his undergraduate degree in Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then received a PhD in Neurosciences and an MD from Stanford University. He trained in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and in Endocrinology at the Massachusetts General Hospital before joining the University of Pennsylvania faculty in 1989.

Dr Lazar’s identification of the nuclear heme receptor Rev-erbα and its corepressor complex, and his pioneering studies of PPARγ incluing discovery of the adipocyte hormone resistin, have linked basic mechanisms of gene transcription to physiology and metabolic diseases. He has given named lectures throughout the world, and has served as a member of the Board of Scientific Councilors of the NIDDK as well as many editorial and scientific advisory boards. He has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians, and received two NIH Merit Awards, the Van Meter Award of the American Thyroid Association, the BMS Freedom to Discover Award, the Richard Weitzman Award, Edwin B. Astwood Lecture Award and Gerald D. Aurbach Lecture Award from The Endocrine Society, and the Stanley Korsmeyer Award of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 2006, and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008.