Accolades: Researchers, Networks, and Prizewinning Science at Yale School of Medicine

Arthur Horwich, MD

Sterling Professor of Genetics and Professor of Pediatrics; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute 

Early in his career, Arthur Horwich benefited from the guidance of several mentors, including biochemist Michael Czech (a graduate student at Brown University while Horwich was an undergraduate), whom Horwich later described as the first “chaperone” of his scientific career. Horwich’s own groundbreaking research became associated with “chaperones” of a different sort: special proteins that assist other proteins in folding into their final forms. Though Horwich has been honored for his work on protein folding with such accolades as the Lasker Prize (2011), and membership in the National Academy of Sciences (2003) and National Academy of Medicine (2008), he readily acknowledges the importance of a global team of collaborators that have made this research possible. Building on this work, Horwich’s laboratory now searches for cures for neurodegenerative diseases caused by protein misfolding.