Robert Lefkowitz

Bio: Robert J. Lefkowitz is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the James B. Duke Professor of Medicine and a Professor of Biochemistry at the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. Dr. Lefkowitz was born in New York City and received his M.D. from Columbia University where he did his internship and residency. He then moved for two years to the NIH and the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Disease as a Clinical and Research Associate. He left there to come to Boston for three years to continue his research at the Departments of Medicine and of Cardiology at Mass General and to teach at the Harvard Medical School. It was from there that he moved to Duke to begin his career as an Associate Professor of Medicine and an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry in 1973.

Dr. Lefkowitz has received many awards since he began his research career. See attached list. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences on whose council he now serves.

Talk Title: Signal Transduction by ß-arrestins and GRKs

Abstract: Dr. Lefkowitz's research interest focuses on the elucidation of the molecular and regulatory properties controlling the function of G protein coupled receptors, such as the adrenergic receptors. In addition to studying the structure of the receptors he has isolated and characterized enzymes and proteins involved in desensitization of the receptors as well as in novel signaling pathways emanating from the receptors. Recently his lab has demonstrated that seven transmembrane receptors signal through ß-arrestins and GRKs in addition to the canical G protein mechanism.