André Nussenzweig
André Nussenzweig is a molecular biologist who did his undergraduate studies in physics at New York University, and subsequently obtained a PhD in physics at Yale University in 1989. He worked two years in the laboratory of the Nobel laureate Dr Serge Haroche as a postdoctoral fellow at the Ecole Normal Superieure in Paris, France. He then became interested in a career in biological science, and in 1992, began research on DNA repair in the Department of Medical Physics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. There, he studied DNA repair mechanisms focusing on its contribution to immune system diversity. In 1998, he established his independent research group at the Experimental Immunology at the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda Maryland. In 2011, he started his own department at the National Cancer Institute called the Laboratory of Genome Integrity. Dr Nussenzweig is known for his contributions to understanding how cells prevent instability in their genome, which otherwise predisposes them to malignant transformation and cancer.
Nussenzweig has been recognized within the NIH by being conferred the Arthur S Flemming Award, numerous NIH and NCI Director’s Awards and awarded the highest honor for an intramural researcher by being named NIH Distinguished Investigator; in 2024, the Deptartment of Health and Human Services recognized him with the HHS Career Achievement Award; and outside NIH by being endowed with the Basser Global Prize for BRCA research (2021), the Environmental Mutagenesis and Genomics Society Professional Award (2024), and membership in the European Molecular Biology Organization (2013), election to the National Academy of Medicine (2019), American Academy of Arts and Science (2023), and the National Academies of Science (2023).