Michael Rosbash
The Circadian
Rhythm story: Past,
Present and Future
Mumbai | Bengaluru | New Delhi
About the Speaker
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1944, Michael Rosbash did his schooling in Boston, Massachusetts. He studied at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Biologie Physico-Chimique in Paris and then obtained his doctor’s degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1970. He spent three years as a post-doc in John Bishop’s lab in the Department of Genetics at the University of Edinburgh. In 1974, Rosbash moved to Brandeis University as a member of the faculty where he became Professor of Biology in 1986. He became an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 1989. Today, Michael Rosbash is the Peter Gruber Endowed Chair in Neuroscience and Professor of Biology at Brandeis University.
Research
Rosbash researches circadian rhythms, molecular neuroscience, sleep, genetics and gene expression. He has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of the post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression, especially RNA metabolism in yeast. He is best known however for his work in Drosophila (fruit flies) that illuminated our current understanding of the molecular mechanisms that underlie circadian rhythms, the intrinsic clock that controls daily oscillations of many different processes. The same biological principles, molecular machines, and molecules that control Drosophila circadian clocks also control this ubiquitous process of circadian rhythmicity throughout the animal kingdom. This circadian clock also controls much of cell physiology and metabolism, again in all animals – from humans to Drosophila.
Rosbash's Circadian
Research Goals
To understand in mechanistic detail how the Drosophila circadian timing occurs
To understand how circadian gene expression regulation takes place
To understand the neural circuit(s) relevant to circadian timekeeping within the fruit fly brain and the functions of individual circadian neurons
Awards & Honours
1989
Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
1997
Elected Member of the American Academy of Art and Science
2003
Elected Member of the National Academy of Science, USA
2007
Elected Member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
2009
Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation Neuroscience Prize (shared with Jeffrey C. and Michael W. Young)
2011
Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Colombia University (shared with Hall and Young)
2012
Canada Gairdner International Awards (shared with Hall and Young)
2012
Massry Prize (shared with Hall and Young)
2013
Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine (shared with Hall and Young)
2013
Wiley Prize in Biomedical Science (shared with Hall and Young)
2017
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (shared with Hall and Young)
2018
Peter C. Farrell Prize in Sleep Medicine (shared with Hall and Young)
