News Release

2 faculty members at Albert Einstein College of Medicine elected to National Academy of Sciences

Grant and Award Announcement

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Robert Singer, Ph.D. and William Jacobs, Jr., Ph.D., Albert Einstein College of Medicine

image: Robert Singer, Ph.D. (left) and William Jacobs, Jr., Ph.D., both at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, were elected to the National Academy of Sciences. view more 

Credit: Albert Einstein College of Medicine

May 1, 2013 – (BRONX, NY) – Two faculty members at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Robert Singer, Ph.D., and William Jacobs, Jr., Ph.D., were among the select scientists who will be inducted into the Washington-based organization at a ceremony in April 2014.

"Bill Jacobs' and Rob Singer's election to the National Academy of Sciences is a richly deserved honor that reflects the extraordinary discoveries each has made," said Allen M. Spiegel, M.D., the Marilyn and Stanley M. Katz Dean at Einstein. "We are proud to have scientists of their caliber on our faculty."

Dr. Singer, professor and co-chair of anatomy and structural biology, is a world leader in developing novel methods for investigating the most fundamental processes in living cells: how the message encoded in the DNA of genes is transcribed into RNA and then translated into proteins. His lab developed the FISH (fluorescence in situ hybridization), a widely used technology to visualize and isolate individual molecules of RNA in a single cell, and was the first to establish that each RNA strand has a non-coding region that determines it's "zip code" in the cell. Dr. Singer is also co-director of the Gruss Lipper Biophotonics Center and of the Integrated Imaging Program and holds the Harold and Muriel Block Chair in Anatomy and Structural Biology.

Dr. Jacobs, professor of microbiology & immunology, is pioneering the use of molecular genetics to control tuberculosis (TB), which kills nearly two million people a year. His research is investigating the genes that make Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB)—the bacterium that causes TB—virulent, identifying new drug targets and engineering weakened strains that can be used as live vaccines. Dr. Jacobs was the first scientist to introduce foreign DNA into MTB, a technique now regularly used by TB investigators around the world. He is also professor of genetics and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator.

Drs. Singer and Jacobs were two of 84 new members and 21 foreign associates from 14 countries who were elected to the academy in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Those elected yesterday bring the total number of active members to 2,179 and the total number of foreign associates to 437. Foreign associates are nonvoting members of the Academy, with citizenship outside the United States.

The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit institution that was established under a congressional charter signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. It recognizes achievement in science by election to membership, and—with the National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council—provides science, technology, and health policy advice to the federal government and other organizations.

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About Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University

Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University is one of the nation's premier centers for research, medical education and clinical investigation. During the 2012-2013 academic year, Einstein is home to 742 M.D. students, 245 Ph.D. students, 116 students in the combined M.D./Ph.D. program, and 360 postdoctoral research fellows. The College of Medicine has more than 2,000 full-time faculty members located on the main campus and at its clinical affiliates. In 2012, Einstein received over $160 million in awards from the NIH. This includes the funding of major research centers at Einstein in diabetes, cancer, liver disease, and AIDS. Other areas where the College of Medicine is concentrating its efforts include developmental brain research, neuroscience, cardiac disease, and initiatives to reduce and eliminate ethnic and racial health disparities. Its partnership with Montefiore Medical Center, the University Hospital and academic medical center for Einstein, advances clinical and translational research to accelerate the pace at which new discoveries become the treatments and therapies that benefit patients. Through its extensive affiliation network involving Montefiore, Jacobi Medical Center –Einstein's founding hospital, and five other hospital systems in the Bronx, Manhattan, Long Island and Brooklyn, Einstein runs one of the largest residency and fellowship training programs in the medical and dental professions in the United States. For more information, please visit http://www.einstein.yu.edu and follow us on Twitter @EinsteinMed.


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