Alex Marson

Alexander Marson is an American biologist and infectious disease doctor, specializing in genetics, human immunology, and CRISPR genome engineering. He is the Director of the Gladstone-UCSF Institute of Genomic Immunology,[1] and a tenured Professor with a dual appointment in the Department of Medicine and the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).[2]

Alex Marson
Born (1979-06-05) June 5, 1979
Manhattan, NY USA
NationalityAmerican
EducationHarvard University (BA, MD)
Cambridge University (MPhil)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD)
OccupationBiologist

He is best known for his work with Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR), specifically for his advances in furthering understanding of the genomics of human T cell function.[3] Marson also currently holds affiliations with the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI), the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub,[4] and the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI).

Early life and education

Alex Marson was born June 5, 1979, in Manhattan, New York. He is the son of Ellen Marson, a professor of Spanish literature and former director of Hadassah, and Bernard Marson, an architect.[5] Marson received an A.B. in biology summa cum laude from Harvard University in 2001. He received a master's degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Cambridge in 2003. Marson received a Ph.D. in Biology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2008, under the guidance of Rick Young and Rudolf Jaenisch at the Whitehead Institute.

Research and career

Marson's research focuses on reprogramming human immune cells, especially T cells, with CRISPR.[6] The applications of this research are in the treatment of cancer, autoimmune diseases, HIV and a wide range of other diseases. In August 2018, Marson was selected as Wired Magazine's 25 Icons of the next 25 Years for his research in DNA programming and genome editing for cancer immunotherapy.[3]

COVID-19

In April & May 2020, Marson and colleagues at UCSF, the Gladstone Institutes, & UC Berkeley collaborated on the meta-testing of COVID-19 antibody tests to verify the accuracy of results.[7] Dr. Marson was featured on CNN,[8] PBS,[9] NBC,[10] NPR,[11] and MSNBC speaking about this work.

Affiliations

Marson is the scientific director for biomedicine at the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI).[12] He is a member of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and was selected as one of the inaugural Chan Zuckerberg Biohub investigators.[13][14]

Awards and recognition
  • 2016 - American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) Young Physician-Scientist Award[15]
  • 2016 - Burroughs Wellcome Foundation Career Award for Medical Scientists[16]
  • 2016 - NIDA/NIH Avenir New Innovator Award[17]
  • 2016 - Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, Project Member[14]
  • 2017 - Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator[4]
  • 2018 - Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, Member[10]

References
  1. "Two New Research Institutes in the Bay Area". gladstone.org. Retrieved 2020-05-12.
  2. "Welcome | Marson Laboratory". marsonlab.ucsf.edu. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
  3. Molteni, Megan (2018-09-18). "Why DNA Is the Most Exciting Programming Language Today". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
  4. "15 UCSF Researchers Named to First Cohort of Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigators". UC San Francisco. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
  5. Lawson, Carol (1989-08-17). "Family Decorating: Living Room Last". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-03-14.
  6. "Alexander Marson - Google Scholar Citations". scholar.google.com. Retrieved 2020-05-29.
  7. Apoorva Mandavilli (2020-04-24). "Coronavirus Antibody Tests: Can You Trust the Results?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-05-01.
  8. @CNNTonight (2020-04-29). "Out of 12 antibody tests that were studied by the COVID-19 Testing Project, one gave false positives more than 15% of the time. Three other tests gave false positives more than 10% of the time. cnn.it/35gMhMB pic.twitter.com/gdCKgUH1s5" (Tweet). Retrieved 2020-05-01 – via Twitter. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  9. "Why antibody tests, a crucial step toward overcoming COVID-19, are still unreliable". PBS NewsHour. 2020-04-29. Retrieved 2020-05-01.
  10. "Congress sounds alarm over inaccurate antibody tests". NBC News. Retrieved 2020-05-29.
  11. "A Double-Barreled Approach To Antibody Testing Could Improve Accuracy". NPR.org. Retrieved 2020-05-29.
  12. "Alex Marson Appointed IGI Scientific Director of Biomedicine". Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI). 2018-07-11. Retrieved 2019-03-14.
  13. "Investigator Program – Chan Zuckerberg Biohub". Retrieved 2019-03-14.
  14. "Alexander Marson, MD, PhD". Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. Retrieved 2019-03-14.
  15. "The American Society for Clinical Investigation". Retrieved 2019-03-14.
  16. "Burroughs Wellcome Fund Invests $8.4 Million in the Careers of Physician-Scientists | Burroughs Wellcome Fund". bwfund.org. Retrieved 2019-03-14.
  17. "Medicine Grand Rounds - Dr. Alexander Marson | Department of Medicine". medicine.ucsf.edu. Retrieved 2019-03-14.
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