Theodore Friedmann (born June 16, 1935) is an American researcher most noted for his work in human gene therapy. [1] [2]
He was born in Vienna. His family emigrated to the United States when he was a young child. [3] Friedmann received his A.B in 1956 and M.D. in 1960 from the University of Pennsylvania. He received an M.A. from the University of Oxford in 1995, where he was the Newton-Abraham Visiting Professor in 1996.
After his MD, he worked at the Children's Hospital Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts from 1960 to 1962, and the US Air Force 10th Tac. Hospital in Alconbury, England from 1962 to 1963. He then worked as a research fellow in colloid science at the University of Cambridge from 1963 to 1964 before returning to Boston, where he was also a teaching and research fellow at Harvard University. He worked at the National Institutes of Health from 1965 to 1968, and then joined the University of California, San Diego where he was assistant professor, promoted to associate professor in 1973 and professor in 1981. [4]
He is a past president of the American Society for Gene Therapy (now the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy). [5]
He also served as the first chair of WADA's Gene Doping Expert Group, [6] from its establishment in 2004 [7] to 2019 [8]
He was awarded the Japan Prize in 2015 'for the proposal of the concept of gene therapy and its clinical applications. [9]
Repoxygen was the tradename for a type of gene therapy to produce erythropoietin (EPO). It was under preclinical development by Oxford Biomedica as a possible treatment for anaemia but was abandoned in 2003.
Steven A. Rosenberg is an American cancer researcher and surgeon, chief of Surgery at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland and a Professor of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences and the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. He pioneered the development of immunotherapy that has resulted in the first effective immunotherapies and the development of gene therapy. He is the first researcher to successfully insert foreign genes into humans.
Michael M. Gottesman is an American biochemist and physician-scientist. He was the deputy director (Intramural) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States, and also Chief of the Laboratory of Cell Biology at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) within the NIH.
Ajit Varki is a physician-scientist who is distinguished professor of medicine and cellular and molecular medicine, founding co-director of the Glycobiology Research and Training Center at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and founding co-director of the UCSD/Salk Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA). He is also executive editor of the textbook Essentials of Glycobiology and distinguished visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras and the National Center for Biological Sciences in Bangalore. He is a specialist advisor to the Human Gene Nomenclature Committee.
Victor Nizet is an American microbiologist who is a professor of pediatrics. He is a Distinguished Professor and Vice Chair of Basic Research at the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine. He is also a Distinguished Professor at UCSD Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in La Jolla, California. He is known for his research in the areas of molecular microbiology and the innate immune system, with a particular focus on infectious diseases caused by common Gram-positive bacterial pathogens such as Group A Streptococcus, Group B Streptococcus and Staphylococcus aureus.
Francis Sellers Collins is an American physician-scientist who discovered the genes associated with a number of diseases and led the Human Genome Project. He served as director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, from 17 August 2009 to 19 December 2021, serving under three presidents.
The NIH Intramural Research Program (IRP) is the internal research program of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), known for its synergistic approach to biomedical science. With 1,200 Principal Investigators and over 4,000 Postdoctoral Fellows conducting basic, translational, and clinical research, the NIH Intramural Research Program is the largest biomedical research institution on earth. The unique funding environment of the IRP facilitates opportunities to conduct both long-term and high-impact science that would otherwise be difficult to undertake. With rigorous external reviews ensuring that only the most outstanding research secures funding, the IRP is responsible for many scientific accomplishments, including the discovery of fluoride to prevent tooth decay, the use of lithium to manage bipolar disorder, and the creation of vaccines against hepatitis, Hemophilus influenzae (Hib), and human papillomavirus (HPV). In addition, the IRP has also produced or trained 21 Nobel Prize-winning scientists.
Inder Mohan Verma is an Indian American molecular biologist, the former Cancer Society Professor of Molecular Biology in the Laboratory of Genetics at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the University of California, San Diego. He is recognized for seminal discoveries in the fields of cancer, immunology, and gene therapy.
Yusuke Nakamura is a Japanese prominent geneticist and cancer researcher best known for developing Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS). He is one of the world's pioneers in applying genetic variations and whole genome sequencing, leading the research field of personalized medicine.
Tasuku Honjo is a Japanese physician-scientist and immunologist. He won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and is best known for his identification of programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1). He is also known for his molecular identification of cytokines: IL-4 and IL-5, as well as the discovery of activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) that is essential for class switch recombination and somatic hypermutation.
Stefan Karlsson is a Professor of Molecular Medicine and Gene Therapy at the Lund Stem Cell Center, in the Department of Laboratory Medicine, Lund University, Sweden. He is recognized for significant contributions to the fields of gene therapy and hematopoietic stem cell biology and in 2009 was awarded the Tobias Prize by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Adah Almutairi is a scientist and professor at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Her work focuses on nanomedicine, nanotechnology, chemistry and polymer science.
Gary S. Firestein is an American rheumatologist, professor, and founding director of the Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute (ACTRI) at the University of California San Diego and Senior Associate Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences at University of California, San Diego.
JoAnn Trejo is an American pharmacologist, cell biologist, a professor, and also an assistant vice chancellor in the department of health sciences faculty affairs in the Department of Pharmacology at the School of Medicine at University of California, San Diego. She is also the assistant vice chancellor for Health Sciences Faculty Affairs. Trejo studies cell signalling by protease-activated G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). She is also actively involved in mentoring, education and outreach activities to increase the diversity of science.
Jin Zhang is a Chinese-American biochemist. She is a professor of pharmacology, chemistry and biochemistry, and biomedical engineering at the University of California, San Diego.
Gene doping is the hypothetical non-therapeutic use of gene therapy by athletes in order to improve their performance in those sporting events which prohibit such applications of genetic modification technology, and for reasons other than the treatment of disease. As of April 2015, there is no evidence that gene doping has been used for athletic performance-enhancement in any sporting events. Gene doping would involve the use of gene transfer to increase or decrease gene expression and protein biosynthesis of a specific human protein; this could be done by directly injecting the gene carrier into the person, or by taking cells from the person, transfecting the cells, and administering the cells back to the person.
Drew Weissman is an American physician and immunologist known for his contributions to RNA biology. Weissman is the inaugural Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research, director of the Penn Institute for RNA Innovation, and professor of medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn).
The Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science (HWSPH) is the University of California, San Diego's school of public and community health. The school currently offers programs leading to bachelors (B.Sc.), masters (MPH), doctoral (Ph.D.), and professional degrees. The school also offers a joint doctoral program in public health with San Diego State University.
Cynthia Dunbar is an American scientist and hematologist at the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She is the Branch Chief of the Translational Stem Cell Biology Branch.
Nina Felice Schor is an American physician-scientist and pediatric neurologist. She has served as director of the NIH Intramural Research Program since the Fall of 2022. Schor was the deputy director of National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke from 2018 to 2022. She was the William H. Eilinger Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at University of Rochester and Pediatrician-in-Chief of the Golisano Children’s Hospital from 2006 to January 2018.