The Rockefeller University is a private university which focuses primarily on basic research in the biomedical fields and offers undergraduate and postgraduate education. It is located between 63rd and 68th Streets along York Avenue, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, New York. Its current president is Sir Paul Nurse.

Twenty-three Nobel Prize winners have been associated with the university.

The university has been the site of many important scientific breakthroughs. Rockefeller scientists, for example, established that DNA is the chemical basis of heredity, discovered blood groups, showed that viruses can cause cancer, founded the modern field of cell biology, worked out the structure of antibodies, developed methadone maintenance for individuals addicted to heroin, devised the AIDS "cocktail" drug therapy, and identified the weight-regulating hormone leptin.

History

The original Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research was founded in 1901 by the oil baron and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, who had earlier founded the University of Chicago in 1889. The Rockefeller family has maintained strong links with the institution throughout its history–David Rockefeller, to give just one example, is the current Honorary Chairman and a Life Trustee. The Institute changed its name to The Rockefeller University in 1965, after expanding its mission to include education.

Upon its organization in 1901, Simon Flexner assumed the directorship.

At a glance

The Rockefeller University community

• >70 heads of laboratories

• 190 research and clinical scientists

• 360 postdoctoral investigators

• 1,000 support staff

• 150 Ph.D. students

• 50 M.D.-Ph.D. students

• 890 alumni

(approximate numbers)

Areas of basic interdisciplinary research

• biochemistry, structural biology and chemistry

• molecular, cell and developmental biology

• immunology, virology and microbiology

• medical sciences and human genetics

• neuroscience

• physics and mathematical biology

Health conditions under study

• addiction

• aging

• AIDS

• Alzheimer’s disease

• antibiotic resistance

• arthritis

• cancer

• Chagas disease

• cystic fibrosis

• diabetes

• heart disease

• hepatitis C

• hereditary diseases

• memory loss with aging

• neurological disorders

• obesity

• psoriasis

• schizophrenia

• tuberculosis

Faculty awards

Nobel Prize recipients

Lasker Award recipients

• For Basic Medical Research

• For Clinical Research:

• For Special Achievement in Medical Science:

National Medal of Science recipients

Members of the National Academy of Sciences

^‡ Foreign Associates

Members of the Institute of Medicine

Gairdner Foundation International Award recipients

MacArthur "Genius Grant" recipients

Current faculty

Faculty are assigned to any of six different research areas defined by the university. However, due to the highly interdisciplinary culture that Rockefeller University fosters, many faculty are listed under several research areas.

Biochemistry, structural biology and chemistry

Immunology, virology and microbiology

Molecular, cell and developmental biology

Medical sciences and human genetics

Neuroscience

Physics and mathematical biology

Faculty history

In the mid 1970's, Rockefeller succeeded in attracting a few prominent academics in the humanities, most notably Saul Kripke, a notable logician, philosopher of language, and expositor of the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. More recently, its faculty were winners of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1999, 2000, and 2001, and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2003.

Previous faculty members:
Harry Frankfurt, Mark Kac

Prominent alumni

• David Albert

• David Baltimore, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physiology & Medicine in 1975 for the discovery of reverse transcriptase. Has served as president of both The Rockefeller University and the California Institute of Technology.

• Barbara Ehrenreich, social commentator and author of the 2001 book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America.

• Jonathan Lear, the John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, who specializes in Aristotle and psychoanalysis.

• Seth Lloyd

• Robert Sapolsky, Stanford Professor, MacArthur Grant recipient, and writer of numerous books on stress and natural history.

See also

• John D. Rockefeller

• David Rockefeller

• Rockefeller family