Speaker Bio: Randy Schekman, Ph.D.

Dr. Randy Schekman is a Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He studied the enzymology of DNA replication as a graduate student with Arthur Kornberg at Stanford University. His current interest in cellular membranes developed during a postdoctoral period with S. J. Singer at the University of California, San Diego.

At Berkeley, he developed a genetic and biochemical approach to the study of eukaryotic membrane traffic. He was awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his part in discovering the “machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells" (shared with James Rothman and Thomas Südhof). Among Dr. Schekman’s additional awards are the Gairdner International Award, and the Albert Lasker Award in Basic Medical Research. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, a Foreign Associate of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, a Foreign Associate of the Royal Society of London, and an Honorary Academician of the Academia Sinica.

In 1999, he was elected President of the American Society for Cell Biology. In 2002 he was appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Annual Reviews of Cell and Developmental Biology. From 2006 - 2011 he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Proceedings of the NAS. In 2011, he was appointed Editor-in-Chief of an Open Access journal, eLife, sponsored by the HHMI, Wellcome Trust and the Max Planck Society.