James Edward Rothman was born on November 3, 1950. He is an American scientist who studies how living things work. At Yale University, he is a professor of biomedical sciences and leads the Department of Cell Biology at Yale School of Medicine. He also directs the Nanobiology Institute at Yale West Campus. In addition, he works as a professor at Columbia University and a research professor at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology in London.
In 2013, Rothman received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on how cells move materials (shared with Randy Schekman and Thomas C. Südhof). He has also been honored with other awards, such as the King Faisal International Prize in 1996, the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University, and the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 2002.
Education
Rothman received his high school diploma from Pomfret School in 1967. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in physics from Yale University in 1971. In 1976, he completed his Doctor of Philosophy degree in biological chemistry at Harvard University. During his studies at Harvard, he worked with Eugene Patrick Kennedy.
Career and research
After completing his Ph.D., Rothman worked with Harvey Lodish at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study the process of glycosylation in membrane proteins. In 1978, he joined the Department of Biochemistry at Stanford University. From 1988 to 1991, he worked at Princeton University. In 1991, he moved to New York to help establish the Department of Cellular Biochemistry and Biophysics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where he also served as vice-chairman of the Sloan-Kettering Institute. In 2003, he left Sloan-Kettering to become a professor of physiology at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons and the head of Columbia’s Center for Chemical Biology. In 2008, he moved to Yale University but continued to work part-time at Columbia. Since 2013, he has also held the position of Distinguished Professor-in-Residence at the Shanghai Institute for Advanced Immunochemical Studies of ShanghaiTech University.
In 1995, Rothman joined the scientific advisory board of Amersham plc. When Amersham was bought by GE Healthcare in 2003, Rothman was named Chief Science Advisor to GE Healthcare.
Rothman’s research explains how vesicles—tiny sac-like structures that move hormones, growth factors, and other molecules inside cells—know where to go and when to release their contents. This process, called cellular trafficking, is important for many bodily functions, such as cell division, communication between brain nerve cells, hormone release like insulin, and nutrient absorption. Problems in this process can cause health issues, including diabetes and botulism.
Some of Rothman’s former postdoctoral students include Gero Miesenböck and Suzanne Pfeffer.
In 2010, Rothman was awarded the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience along with Richard Scheller and Thomas C. Südhof for discovering how neurotransmitters are released. In 2013, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Randy Schekman and Thomas C. Südhof for uncovering the mechanisms that control vesicle transport in cells.
Rothman is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and its Institute of Medicine.