Rockefeller University

The Rockefeller University

Former names	The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research
Motto	Scientia pro bono humani generis (Latin)
Motto in English	Science for the benefit of humanity
Type	Private
Established	1901
Endowment	$1.987 billion[1]
President	Richard P. Lifton
Location	New York City (Upper East Side, Manhattan), United States 40°45′45″N 73°57′20″W / 40.76250°N 73.95556°W / 40.76250; -73.95556Coordinates: 40°45′45″N 73°57′20″W / 40.76250°N 73.95556°W / 40.76250; -73.95556
Website	Rockefeller.edu

The Rockefeller University is a center for scientific research, primarily in the biological and medical sciences, providing doctoral and postdoctoral education. Rockefeller is one of the most prestigious institutes for biomedical research in the world, and it is the oldest such institute in the United States. Of a 78 person faculty (tenured and tenure-track, as of 2016), 38 are members of the National Academy of Sciences, 18 are members of the National Academy of Medicine, 8 are Lasker Award recipients, and 5 are Nobel Prize winners.

Rockefeller is located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, between 63rd and 68th Streets along York Avenue.

Richard P. Lifton—previously the executive director of the Center for Human Genetics and Genomics at Yale University—became the university's eleventh president on September 1, 2016.

The Rockefeller University Press publishes the Journal of Experimental Medicine, the Journal of Cell Biology, and The Journal of General Physiology.

History

Founder's Hall

The Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive runs under the campus

The Rockefeller University was founded in June 1901 as The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research—often called simply The Rockefeller Institute—by John D. Rockefeller, who had founded the University of Chicago in 1889, upon advice by his adviser Frederick T. Gates^[2] and action taken in March 1901 by his son, John D. Rockefeller Jr.^[3] Greatly elevating the prestige of American science and medicine, it was America's first biomedical institute, like France's Pasteur Institute (1888) and Germany's Robert Koch Institute (1891).^[2] The Rockefeller Foundation, a philanthropic organization, founded in 1913, is a separate entity, but had close connections mediated by prominent figures holding dual positions.^[4]

The first director of laboratories was Simon Flexner, who supervised the development of research capacity at the Institute, whose staff made major discoveries in basic research and medicine. While a student at Johns Hopkins University, Flexner had studied under the Institute's first scientific director, William H. Welch, first dean of Hopkins' medical school and known as the dean of American medicine.^[3] Flexner retired in 1935 and was succeeded by Herbert Gasser.^[5] He was succeeded in 1953 by Detlev Bronk, who broadened The Rockefeller Institute into a university that began awarding the PhD degree in 1954.^[3] In 1965 The Rockefeller Institute's name was changed to The Rockefeller University.^[3]

For its first six decades, the Institute focused on basic research to develop basic science, on applied research as biomedical engineering, and, since 1910—when The Rockefeller Hospital opened on its campus as America's first facility for clinical research—on clinical science.^[6] The Rockefeller Hospital's first director Rufus Cole retired in 1937 and was succeeded by Thomas Milton Rivers.^[7] As director of The Rockefeller Institute's virology laboratory, he established virology as an independent field apart from bacteriology.

Research breakthroughs

Rockefeller has a remarkable history of research breakthroughs especially given the size of the institution. A snippet of the research breakthroughs include:

• First to culture the infectious agent associated with syphilis^[8]
• Showed that viruses can be oncogenic, and enabled the field tumor biology^[9]
• Development of tissue culture techniques^[10]
• Discovery of blood groups and application of group based blood donations.
• Discovery of the dendritic cell, the sentinel of the immune system
• Identification of a genetic defect associated with atherosclerosis, the leading cause of heart attacks in the U.S.
• Development of Solid Phase Peptide Synthesis
• Development of the practice of travel vaccination^[11]
• Pioneered the physiology and chemistry of vision
• Located genes regulating the sleep/wake cycle
• Identified the phenomenon of autoimmune disease^[12]
• Developed virology as an independent field^[13]
• Developed the first peptide antibiotic^[14]
• Obtained the first American isolation of influenzavirus A and first isolation of influenzavirus B^[15]
• Showed that genes are structurally composed of DNA,^[16] discovered blood groups, resolved that virus particles are protein crystals^[17]
• Resolved antibody structure, developed methadone treatment of heroin addiction, devised the AIDS drug cocktail, and identified the appetite-regulating hormone leptin^[18]

In the last decade alone, Rockefeller scientists have:

• uncovered the molecular basis of fragile X syndrome, the second leading cause of mental retardation;
• developed a powerful agent that can target and wipe out anthrax bacteria;
• produced an infectious form of the hepatitis C virus in laboratory cultures of human cells;
• showed that a normal strain of staph bacteria required only 90 days to mutate and gain antibiotic resistance;
• discovered a new link between depression and serotonin, a brain chemical that regulates mood, sleep and memory; and
• imaged for the first time the birth of HIV particles in a living cell.

Notable individuals

Notable figures to emerge from the Institution include Alexis Carrel, Peyton Rous, Hideyo Noguchi, Thomas Milton Rivers, Richard Shope, Thomas Francis Jr, Oswald T. Avery, Wendell Meredith Stanley, René Dubos, Ashton Carter, and Cornelius P. Rhoads. Others attained eminence before being drawn to the university. Joshua Lederberg, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1958, served as president of the university from 1978 to 1990.^[19] Paul Nurse, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2001, became President in 2003.^[20] (Before Nurse's tenure, Thomas Sakmar was acting-president from 2002.^[21]) In all, 24 Nobel Prize recipients have been associated with the University. In the mid-1970s, the University attracted a few prominent academicians in the humanities, such as Saul Kripke.

Urged by Rockefeller Jr, his only son, who was enthusiastic about the Institute, Rockefeller Sr visited but once.^[22] Rockefeller Jr's youngest son David would visit with his father.^[23] David Rockefeller joined the board of trustees in 1940, was its chairman from 1950 to 1975, chaired the board's executive committee from 1975 to 1995, became honorary chairman and life trustee,^[24] and remained active as a philanthropist.^[23]

At a glance

To foster an interdisciplinary atmosphere among its 79 laboratories, the university assigns a faculty member to one of six interconnecting research areas.^[25][26]

Research areas

• biochemistry, structural biology, chemistry, and chemical biology
• molecular cell & developmental biology
• medical sciences & human genetics
• immunology, virology, microbiology
• physics & mathematical biology
• neuroscience

University community statistics

• More than 70 heads of laboratories
• 200 research and clinical scientists
• 350 postdoctoral investigators
• 1,050 clinicians, technicians, administrative and support staff
• 175 Ph.D. and M.D.-Ph.D. students
• 1,178 alumni

Nobel Prize winners

Award affiliations taken from "The Rockefeller University » Nobel Laureates". Retrieved 2016-03-17. 

Notable alumni

• David Albert, physicist and philosopher
• David Baltimore, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physiology & Medicine in 1975 for the discovery of reverse transcriptase. Has served as president of both the Rockefeller University and the California Institute of Technology.
• Michael Bratman, Durfee Professor of philosophy at Stanford University.
• Gerald Edelman, recipient of the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• Barbara Ehrenreich, social commentator and author of the 2001 book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America.
• Jonathan Lear, the John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, who specializes in Aristotle and psychoanalysis.
• Seth Lloyd, physicist
• Harvey Lodish, professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Founding Member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
• Manuel Elkin Patarroyo, Colombian pathologist who made the world's first attempt of synthetic vaccine for malaria. Recipient of Prince of Asturias Award in 1994.
• Robert Sapolsky, Stanford professor, MacArthur "Genius" Grant recipient, and writer of numerous books on stress and natural history.
• Amos Smith, Rhodes-Thompson professor of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania
• Richard Wolfenden, professor of chemistry, biochemistry and biophysics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Martin Yarmush, Paul and Mary Monroe Chair and Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Rutgers University and Founding Director of the Center for Engineering in Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital

References

Notes

Sources

• Hanson, Elizabeth. The Rockefeller University Achievements: A Century of Science for the Benefit of Humankind, 1901-2001 (New York: The Rockefeller University Press, 2000).

External links

• The Rockefeller University
• The Rockefeller University Newswire
• The Rockefeller University Hospital
• The Rockefeller University Press
• Natural Selections (an unofficial Rockefeller University newsletter)
• Rockefeller Archive Center
• Rockefeller University Archives