P&S Adjunct Faculty Member Wins 2013 Nobel Prize

Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons congratulates James Rothman, PhD, adjunct professor of physiology & cellular biophysics at P&S, on sharing the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Randy Schekman of the University of California, Berkeley, and Thomas Sudhof of Stanford University.

The three scientists have been recognized for their discovery of the cellular machinery responsible for shipping hormones, neurotransmitters, and other molecules to their correct destinations within the cell.

“Jim is a singular talent who combines scientific brilliance with imagination and an infectious joy engendered by the quest for knowledge," said Andrew Marks, chair of the Department of Physiology & Cellular Biophysics and the Clyde and Helen Wu Professor of Molecular Cardiology (in Medicine), in congratulating Dr. Rothman on his Nobel.

"We are fortunate that Jim agreed to serve as an adjunct faculty member after he left P&S to join Yale as a department chair. As an adjunct faculty member, he advises our department on matters related to faculty recruitment and in areas of science in which he is the leading expert, which includes much of cell biology."

Dr. Rothman, who joined P&S in 2004, served as the Clyde and Helen Wu Professor of Physiology (Chemical Biology) and director of the Columbia Genome Center before being recruited to Yale in 2008. In 2002, he received Columbia's Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize, Columbia University’s top honor for achievement in biology and biochemistry research. He shared the Horwitz Prize with Dr. Schekman. Drs. Rothman and Scheckman also shared the 2002 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award.