Thomas Sakmar Explained

Thomas P. Sakmar
Acting President of The Rockefeller University
Predecessor:Arnold J. Levine
Successor:Sir Paul Nurse
Birth Place:Detroit, Michigan
Alma Mater:University of Chicago, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Children:3
Residence:New York
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Awards:Honorary Doctorate from Karolinska Institute (2020)[1]

Thomas P. Sakmar (born 1956) is an American physician-scientist and the former acting president of The Rockefeller University.[2] Prior to becoming acting president he was associate dean for graduate studies in the Tri-Institutional MD–PhD Program.

Sakmar earned his A.B. in chemistry from University of Chicago and in 1982 received his M.D. from University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. He carried out clinical training in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and postdoctoral training with H. Gobind Khorana at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before starting the laboratory of molecular biology and biochemistry at The Rockefeller University in 1990.

With 200 peer-reviewed research articles[3] he is best known for his work on spectral tuning[4] in photopigments and for developing drug discovery methods[5] targeting G protein-coupled receptors. He has been a senior fellow[6] of the Ellison Medical Foundation, an investigator [7] of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Marie Krogh Visiting Professor at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research at the University of Copenhagen as well as guest professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

In 2020 he was awarded an honorary doctorate (honoris causa) from Karolinska Institute.[8]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Thomas P. Sakmar receives 2020 honorary doctorate from Karolinska Institute . Karolinska Institutet. 15 April 2020.
  2. News: Thomas P. Sakmar assumes office as the university's acting president . The New York Times. 12 February 2002. 1 September 2016. Arenson. Karen W..
  3. Web site: Bibliography for Thomas P. Sakmar. scholar.google.com. 19 April 2020.
  4. Kochendoerfer . Gerd G. . Lin . Steven W. . Sakmar . Thomas P. . Mathies . Richard A. . How color visual pigments are tuned . Trends in Biochemical Sciences . August 1999 . 24 . 8 . 300–305 . 10.1016/S0968-0004(99)01432-2 . 10431173 .
  5. Ellis . Clare . The state of GPCR research in 2004 . Nature Reviews Drug Discovery . July 2004 . 3 . 7 . 577–626 . 10.1038/nrd1458 . 15272499 . 33620092 .
  6. Web site: Ellison Medical Foundation, Senior Scholar Award in Aging of the Visual System.
  7. Web site: HHMI Alumni: Thomas P. Sakmar, MD. HHMI.org.
  8. Web site: Honorary Doctors at Karolinska Institute . Karolinska Institutet. 15 April 2020.