Tom Maniatis

Tom Maniatis born 8 May, 1943 in Denver, Colorado is an American professor of molecular and cellular biology.

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Maniatis is a graduate of the University of Colorado. At the age of 28 he received a PhD in Molecular Biology from Vanderbilt University, and he received Honorary PhD's from the University of Athens and the Watson School of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Maniatis carried out postdoctoral studies with Professor Mark Ptashne at Harvard University and with Dr. Fred Sanger at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge England. Maniatis has held faculty positions at Harvard University, The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology.

Tom Maniatis has worked at the forefront of the field of molecular and cellular biology throughout his career. Maniatis not only determined the nucleotide sequence of one of lambda’s regulatory elements while working in Fred Sanger’s lab without the aid of standard procedures for DNA sequencing, he also perfected protocols for identifying and isolating genes. Dr. Maniatis is also credited with being a pioneer in the development of gene cloning technology. In 1982 Maniatis along with Joe Sambrook and Edward Fritsch wrote "Molecular Cloning-A Laboratory Manual", which has had an enormous impact on life sciences. Maniatis has received numerous awards including the 1981 Eli Lilly Research Award in Microbiology and Immunology from the American Society of Microbiology, the 1985 Richard Lounsbery Award for Biology and the 1998 Novartis Drew Award in Biomedical Research, the 2000 AMA Scientific Achievement Award, and the 2001 Pasarow Award in Cancer Research from the Pasarow Foundation. Maniatis was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1985. Maniatis is also a pioneer in the biotechnology industry, having cofounded Genetics Institute in 1980, ProScript Pharma in 1994, and Acceleron Pharma in 2004. His contributions to biotechnology were recognized by the Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine, Brandeis University, in 1999.

Today Maniatis is the Thomas H. Lee Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, where in 1981 he returned from Caltech as chairman of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Harvard University. Maniatis' current research focuses on the mechanisms of gene regulation in innate immunity and in the brain. Recently, his laboratory has initiated studies of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Personal

Tom Maniatis family origins are from Peloponese. To his Hellenic roots, he attributes his good work ethic. "What I love about Greece," he says, "is the warmth and friendliness of the people and the fact that the cities as well as the countryside are so beautiful."[1]

Sources

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