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Marc Kirschner

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Marc Kirschner
Born
Marc Wallace Kirschner

(1945-02-28)February 28, 1945(age 79)
Chicago,Illinois, U.S.
Alma materUniversity of California, Berkeley(PhD)
Northwestern University(BA)
Known forcell cycle,embryonic development,facilitated evolution
Scientific career
FieldsSystems biology
InstitutionsHarvard Medical School
University of California, San Francisco
Princeton University
ThesisConformational changes in aspartate transcarbamylase(1971)
Doctoral advisorHoward Schachman
Other academic advisorsJohn Gerhart
John Gurdon[citation needed]
Doctoral studentsTim Stearns
Tim Mitchison[1][2]
Websitekirschner.hms.harvard.edu

Marc Wallace Kirschner(born February 28, 1945) is an American cell biologist and biochemist and the founding chair of the Department of Systems Biology atHarvard Medical School.He is known for major discoveries in cell and developmental biology related to the dynamics and function of thecytoskeleton,the regulation of thecell cycle,and the process of signaling in embryos, as well as the evolution of the vertebrate body plan.[3]He is a leader in applying mathematical approaches to biology.[4]He is the John Franklin Enders University Professor atHarvard University.[5]In 2021 he was elected to theAmerican Philosophical Society.[6]

Early life and education[edit]

Kirschner was born inChicago,Illinois, on February 28, 1945. He graduated fromNorthwestern Universitywith a B.A. in chemistry in 1966. He participated in theNSF Graduate Research Fellowship Programat theNational Science Foundationin 1966, and earned a doctorate in biochemistry from theUniversity of California, Berkeleyin 1971.[7]

Career[edit]

He heldpostdoctoralpositions atUniversity of California, Berkeleyand at theUniversity of Oxfordin England. He became assistant professor atPrinceton Universityin 1972. In 1978 he was made professor at theUniversity of California, San Francisco.In 1993, he moved toHarvard Medical School,where he served as the chair of the new Department of Cell Biology for a decade. He became the founding chair of the HMS Department of Systems Biology in 2003. He was named theJohn Franklin EndersUniversity Professor in 2009.[5]In 2018, he was succeeded as Chair of the Department of Systems Biology byGalit Lahav.[8]

Kirschner studies how cells divide, how they generate their shape, how they control their size, and how embryos develop. In his eclectic lab, developmental work on the frog coexists with biochemical work on mechanism ofubiquitination,cytoskeletonassembly orsignal transduction.

At Princeton, his early work onmicrotubulesestablished their unusual molecular assembly from tubulin proteins and identified the first microtubule-stabilizing proteintau,[9]later shown to be a major component of the neurofibrillary tangles in Alzheimer's disease. In studies at UC San Francisco of the frog embryo as a model system of cell development, Kirschner identified the first inducer of embryonic differentiation, fibroblast growth factor (FGF),[10]an early finding in the field of signal transduction.

Kirschner's lab is also known for uncovering basic mechanisms of the cell cycle ineukaryoticcells. Working inXenopus(frog) egg extracts, Kirschner and Andrew Murray showed thatcyclinsynthesis drives the cell cycle[11]and, later, thatubiquitinregulates levels of cyclin by marking the cell-cycle molecule for destruction.[12]His lab discovered and purified many of the components involved in cell cycle progression, includinganaphase promoting complex(APC), the complex that ubiquitinatescyclin B.[13]

A second noted[14]finding was his discovery, withTim Mitchison,of the dynamic instability of microtubules,[15][16]In mitosis, for example, microtubules form the spindle that separates the chromosomes. The first step in spindle formation is the nucleation of microtubules by microtubule-organizing centers, which then grow in all directions. Microtubules that attach to a chromosome are stabilized and are therefore retained to form part of the spindle. Because of dynamic instability, some individual microtubules that are not stabilized are at risk of collapse (or “catastrophe” as Kirschner named it), allowing re-use of the tubulinmonomers.This recognition of self-organization in biological systems has been highly influential, and helped shape the view of the cytoplasm as a collection of dynamic molecular machines.[17]

Kirschner is also interested in the evolutionary origins of the vertebrate body plan. Together with John Gerhart, he was instrumental in developing the acorn wormSaccoglossus kowalevskiiinto a model system[18]that could be used to study the divergence betweenhemichordatesandchordates,and the evolution of thechordatenervous system.[19][20]

Kirschner is a pioneer in using mathematical approaches to learn about central biological questions. For example, a model of theWnt pathwayhe developed in collaboration with the lateReinhart Heinrichshowed that new properties and constraints emerge when the individual biochemical steps are combined into a complete pathway.[21][22]A talk he gave on mathematics and the future of medicine at a retreat for Department Chairs atHarvard Medical Schoolin 2003 inspired the Dean,Joseph B. Martin,to found a new Department, the Department ofSystems Biology,with Kirschner as founding chair.[3]Since then, Kirschner's lab has attracted many students and post-docs from theoretical backgrounds who wish to make the transition into biology. His lab is now a leader in using mathematical tools to analyze signaling pathways,[23]cell size control,[24]and the selectivity of drugs.[25]

In two books co-authored withJohn Gerhart,Kirschner has described the cellular and developmental underpinnings of the evolution of organisms, and the concept of "evolvability".[26]In the most recent book, Kirschner and Gerhart proposed a new theory of "facilitated variation" that aims to answer the question: How can small, random genetic changes be converted into useful changes in complex body parts?[27]

Public service[edit]

Kirschner has been an advocate for federal biomedical research funding and served as first chair of the Joint Steering Committee for Public Policy, a coalition of scientific societies he helped create in 1993 to educate the U.S. Congress on biomedical research and lobby for public funding of it.[28]In 2014, Kirschner (together withBruce Alberts,Shirley TilghmanandHarold Varmus) called for a number of changes to the system of US biomedical science, with the intention of reducing "hypercompetition"[29]This publication led to the formation of an organization,Rescuing Biomedical Research,that aims to collect community input and propose changes to the structure of academic science in the USA.[30]

Kirschner helped launch the monthly, peer-reviewed journalPLoS Biologyin October 2003 as a member of the editorial board and senior author of a paper in the inaugural issue. The journal was the first publishing venture from the San Francisco-based Public Library of Science (PLoS), which had begun three years previously as a grassroots organization of scientists advocating free and unrestricted access to the scientific literature[31]

Books[edit]

  • withJohn Gerhart,Cells, Embryos, and Evolution: Toward a Cellular and Developmental Understanding of Phenotypic Variation and Evolutionary Adaptability(Blackwell's,1997)ISBN0-86542-574-4
  • withJohn Gerhart,The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin's Dilemma([1]Yale University Press2005)ISBN0-300-10865-6

Awards and associations[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^Mitchison, Timothy John (1984).Structure and Dynamics of Organized Microtubule Arrays(PhD thesis). University of California, San Francisco.OCLC1020493513.ProQuest303337748.Closed access icon
  2. ^Mitchison, Tim; Kirschner, Marc (1984). "Dynamic instability of microtubule growth".Nature.312(5991): 237–242.Bibcode:1984Natur.312..237M.doi:10.1038/312237a0.ISSN0028-0836.PMID6504138.S2CID30079133.
  3. ^ab"Sprouting Seeds | Harvard Medical School".hms.harvard.edu.Retrieved2019-03-30.
  4. ^"Harvard teams' studies featured in Science 'Breakthrough of the Year'".Harvard Gazette.2018-12-21.Retrieved2019-03-30.
  5. ^abIreland C"Kirschner and King named University Professors"Harvard Gazette,23 July 2009 (retrieved 16 May 2012)
  6. ^"The American Philosophical Society Welcomes New Members for 2021".
  7. ^"Marc W. Kirschner Ph.D. | Kirschner Lab".
  8. ^Jiang K"New Systems Bio Chair named"Harvard Medical School News,April 16, 2018 (retrieved 6 June 2018)
  9. ^Weingarten, MD; Lockwood, AH; Hwo, SY; Kirschner, MW (1975)."A protein factor essential for microtubule assembly".Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.72(5): 1858–1862.Bibcode:1975PNAS...72.1858W.doi:10.1073/pnas.72.5.1858.PMC432646.PMID1057175.
  10. ^Kimelman, D; Abraham, J. A; Haaparanta, T; Palisi, T. M; Kirschner, M. W (1988). "The presence of fibroblast growth factor in the frog egg: Its role as a natural mesoderm inducer".Science.242(4881): 1053–6.Bibcode:1988Sci...242.1053K.doi:10.1126/science.3194757.PMID3194757.
  11. ^Pulverer, Bernd"Milestones in cell division (12): Surfing the cyclin wave"Nature Publishing Group(retrieved 16 May 2012)
  12. ^Brooksbank, Cath"Milestones in cell division (20): Disappearing Act"Nature Publishing Group(retrieved 16 May 2012)
  13. ^King, RW; Peters, JM; Tugendreich, S; Rolfe, M; Heiter, P; Kirschner, MW (1995)."A 20S complex containing CDC27 and CDC16 catalyzes the mitosis-specific conjugation of ubiquitin to cyclin B".Cell.81(2): 279–88.doi:10.1016/0092-8674(95)90338-0.PMID7736580.S2CID16958690.
  14. ^Lewin, B"Great experiments: Dynamic instability of microtubules - Marc Kirschner and Tim Mitchison",CELLS! The web site accompanying theCellstextbook (Jones and Bartlett Publishers (2007)
  15. ^Le Bot, Nathalie (2010)."Key instability".Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology.9:s14–s15.doi:10.1038/nrm2584.
  16. ^Holy, TE; Leibler, S (1994)."Dynamic instability of microtubules as an efficient way to search in space".Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.91(12): 5682–5685.Bibcode:1994PNAS...91.5682H.doi:10.1073/pnas.91.12.5682.PMC44060.PMID8202548.
  17. ^"Achievements".Kirschner Wins Gairdner International Award.Harvard University.April 20, 2001.Retrieved16 May2012.{{cite book}}:|periodical=ignored (help)
  18. ^Lowe, Christopher J.; Tagawa, Kuni; Humphreys, Tom; Kirschner, Marc; Gerhart, John (2004), "Hemichordate Embryos: Procurement, Culture, and Basic Methods",Development of Sea Urchins, Ascidians, and Other Invertebrate Deuterostomes: Experimental Approaches,Methods in Cell Biology, vol. 74, Elsevier, pp.171–194,doi:10.1016/s0091-679x(04)74008-x,ISBN9780124802780,PMID15575607
  19. ^Tautz, Diethard (2003)."Chordate Evolution in a New Light".Cell.113(7): 812–813.doi:10.1016/S0092-8674(03)00472-0.PMID12837236.S2CID11562638.
  20. ^Lowe, Christopher J; Wu, Mike; Salic, Adrian; Evans, Louise; Lander, Eric; Stange-Thomann, Nicole; Gruber, Christian E; Gerhart, John; Kirschner, Marc (2003)."Anteroposterior Patterning in Hemichordates and the Origins of the Chordate Nervous System".Cell.113(7): 853–865.doi:10.1016/S0092-8674(03)00469-0.PMID12837244.S2CID18009831.
  21. ^Kirschner, Marc W. (2006)."Obituary: Reinhart Heinrich (1946–2006)".Nature.444(7120): 700.Bibcode:2006Natur.444..700K.doi:10.1038/444700a.PMID17151654.
  22. ^Lee, Ethan; Salic, Adrian; Krüger, Roland; Heinrich, Reinhart; Kirschner, Marc W (2003-10-13). Roel Nusse (ed.)."The Roles of APC and Axin Derived from Experimental and Theoretical Analysis of the Wnt Pathway".PLOS Biology.1(1): e10.doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0000010.ISSN1545-7885.PMC212691.PMID14551908.
  23. ^Hernández, AR; Klein, AM; Kirschner, MW (Dec 7, 2012). "Kinetic responses of β-catenin specify the sites of Wnt control".Science.338(6112): 1337–1340.Bibcode:2012Sci...338.1337H.doi:10.1126/science.1228734.PMID23138978.S2CID3470717.
  24. ^Kafri, R; Levy, J; Ginzberg, MB; Oh, S; Lahav, G; Kirschner, MW (Feb 28, 2013)."Dynamics extracted from fixed cells reveal feedback linking cell growth to cell cycle".Nature.494(7438): 480–483.Bibcode:2013Natur.494..480K.doi:10.1038/nature11897.PMC3730528.PMID23446419.
  25. ^Gujral, TS; Peshkin, L; Kirschner, MW (April 1, 2014)."Exploiting polypharmacology for drug target deconvolution".Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.111(13): 5048–53.Bibcode:2014PNAS..111.5048G.doi:10.1073/pnas.1403080111.PMC3977247.PMID24707051.
  26. ^Kirschner, M (7 November 2013)."Beyond Darwin: Evolvability and the generation of novelty".BMC Biology.11:110.doi:10.1186/1741-7007-11-110.PMC4225857.PMID24228732.
  27. ^Parter, Merav; Kashtan, Nadav; Alon, Uri (2008). Stormo, Gary (ed.)."Facilitated Variation: How Evolution Learns from Past Environments to Generalize to New Environments".PLOS Computational Biology.4(11): e1000206.Bibcode:2008PLSCB...4E0206P.doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000206.PMC2563028.PMID18989390.
  28. ^Speech for the American Society for Microbiology National MeetingArchived2012-05-31 at theWayback MachinebyHarold Varmus,director of theNational Institutes of Health,New Orleans, 11 December 1993 (retrieved 16 May 2012).
  29. ^Alberts, B; Kirschner, MW; Tilghman, S; Varmus, H (April 22, 2014)."Rescuing US biomedical research from its systemic flaws".Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.111(16): 5773–5777.Bibcode:2014PNAS..111.5773A.doi:10.1073/pnas.1404402111.PMC4000813.PMID24733905.
  30. ^"Rescuing Biomedical Research (RBR)".UCSF Bruce Alberts, PHD. August 17, 2016.
  31. ^Reynolds, Tom (24 October 2003),"Publishing: Online Journal Opens Access to Scientific Literature",Focus,Harvard University,retrieved16 May2012
  32. ^AAAS member lists in PDF
  33. ^Archived award citation
  34. ^"CMU press release, 3 March 2004".Archived fromthe originalon 2016-03-03.Retrieved2012-05-24.
  35. ^Harvey Prize 2015

External links[edit]

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