Jonathan Weissman is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator as well as a Professor of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology and Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco. Jonathan received his undergraduate degree in physics from Harvard and his PhD, also in physics, from the Massachussets Institute of Technology. He did his post-doctoral work with Arthur Horwich at Yale University School of Medicine.
The Weissman lab strives to understand the mechanisms used by cells to ensure the correct folding of proteins. The disastrous consequences of protein misfolding are evident in Alzheimer’s and prion diseases. His lab is also developing experimental and analytical approaches to investigate the organization of complex biological systems.
Jonathan received the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in Biophysics in 2008 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2009.