Keith R. Yamamoto | |
---|---|
Born | February 4, 1946 Des Moines, Iowa, United States |
Alma mater | Iowa State University, Princeton University |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Biochemistry |
Institutions | University of California, San Francisco |
Keith R. Yamamoto (born February 4, 1946) is vice chancellor of Science Policy and Strategy and professor of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco, (UCSF). He is known for his Molecular Biology and Biochemistry research on nuclear receptors and his involvement in science policy and precision medicine.
Yamamoto identified the genomic sequences to which the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) binds in order to control gene transcription [1] termed "glucocorticoid response elements". [2] In science policy, he has served as Chairman of the Board on Life Sciences at the National Academy of Sciences, [3] as well as serving on numerous government and public advisory boards, including the NIH Center for Scientific Review Advisory Council.
Yamamoto was born in Des Moines, Iowa, and graduated from Iowa State University with a B.S. in Biochemistry and Biophysics in 1968. At Iowa State, he was a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity. [4] He earned his doctorate in Biochemical Sciences at Princeton University in 1973 in the laboratory of Bruce Alberts for his research on the estrogen receptor (ER). [5] He then began his research on the glucocorticoid receptor as a postdoctoral fellow with Gordon Tomkins at UCSF.
In 1976, Yamamoto joined the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) as an Assistant Professor. In 1978, he became an associate professor and in 1983 a full professor. He also took on the role of Vice-Chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UCSF in 1985. In 2015, Yamamoto became UCSF's first vice chancellor of science policy and strategy. He was previously the vice chancellor of research for the university, and the vice dean, Research, within the School of Medicine.
Yamamoto was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1989, [6] elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1989, and to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2002. Yamamoto ran a research lab focused on understanding signaling and transcriptional control by nuclear receptors and continues to teach graduate courses in molecular biology and biochemistry at UCSF.
Throughout his career, Dr. Yamamoto has also been committed to public and science policy. In the 1980s he argued against the development of biological warfare by the U.S. Department of Defense. [7] [8] In 1986 he co-authored with Charles Piller a book, "The Rebirth of American Biological Warfare:GENE WARS Military Control Over the New Genetic Technologies", disclosing the history of the use of biological weapons in the United States and advising against continuing these programs. [9]
Dr. Yamamoto has served on several committees that oversee the NIH peer review process which allocates funding to research investigators. He was Chairman of the NIH Center for Scientific Review Advisory Committee from 1996-2000. From 2007-2008 he co-chaired The Advisory Committee to the Director Working Group on Peer Review and the Advisory Committee to the NIH Director from 2007-2010. He had advocated for streamlining the science grant review process and for devising strategies for focusing NIH funding on research that will have the greatest impact in the field. [10] In 2008, he was nominated as one of 10 Influential People to Watch in Biomedical Policy. [3]
In April 2022, Dr. Yamamoto was elected as President of the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the largest multidisciplinary scientific society in the world.
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It conducts research and teaching in medical and biological sciences.
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Ronald Mark Evans is an American Biologist, Professor and Head of the Salk’s Gene Expression Laboratory, and the March of Dimes Chair in Molecular and Developmental Biology at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. Dr. Ronald M. Evans is known for his original discoveries of nuclear hormone receptors (NR), a special class of transcriptional factor, and the elucidation of their universal mechanism of action, a process that governs how lipophilic hormones and drugs regulate virtually every developmental and metabolic pathway in animals and humans. Nowadays, NRs are among the most widely investigated group of pharmaceutical targets in the world, already yielding benefits in drug discovery for cancer, muscular dystrophies, osteoporosis, type II diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases. His current research focuses on the function of nuclear hormone signaling and their function in metabolism and cancer.
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Robert G. Roeder is an American biochemist. He is known as a pioneer scientist in eukaryotic transcription. He discovered three distinct nuclear RNA polymerases in 1969 and characterized many proteins involved in the regulation of transcription, including basic transcription factors and the first mammalian gene-specific activator over five decades of research. He is the recipient of the Gairdner Foundation International Award in 2000, the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 2003, and the Kyoto Prize in 2021. He currently serves as Arnold and Mabel Beckman Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Biochemical and Molecular Biology at The Rockefeller University.
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The mineralocorticoid receptor, also known as the aldosterone receptor or nuclear receptor subfamily 3, group C, member 2, (NR3C2) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the NR3C2 gene that is located on chromosome 4q31.1-31.2.
In the field of molecular biology, nuclear receptors are a class of proteins responsible for sensing steroids, thyroid hormones, vitamins, and certain other molecules. These intracellular receptors work with other proteins to regulate the expression of specific genes, thereby controlling the development, homeostasis, and metabolism of the organism.
The nuclear receptor 4A1 also known as Nur77, TR3, and NGFI-B is a protein that in humans is encoded by the NR4A1 gene.
Rev-Erb alpha (Rev-Erbɑ), also known as nuclear receptor subfamily 1 group D member 1 (NR1D1), is one of two Rev-Erb proteins in the nuclear receptor (NR) family of intracellular transcription factors. In humans, REV-ERBɑ is encoded by the NR1D1 gene, which is highly conserved across animal species.
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Kenneth S. Zaret is a professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, and Director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at UPenn. He is a recipient of the Hans Popper Basic Science Award from the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and the American Liver Foundation, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the European Molecular Biology Organization, and the National Academy of Sciences.
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