Keith E. Mostov

Keith E. Mostov is an American cell biologist. He received a BA from University of Chicago in 1976 and during 1976–77 he was a Rhodes Scholar at New College, Oxford.[1] Mostov received a PhD in Biological Science from the Rockefeller University in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Günter Blobel in 1983, and an MD from Weill Cornell Medicine in 1984. He was a Whitehead Fellow[2] at the Whitehead Institute of MIT from 1984 to 1989. In 1989, Mostov joined the faculty of the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, where he is currently Professor.[3] Mostov and colleagues discovered and sequenced the Polymeric Immunoglobulin Receptor (pIgR) and proposed the generally accepted model of its pathway and function.[4] Neil E. Simister and Mostov cloned and sequenced the Neonatal Fc Receptor (FcRn).[5] Mostov and colleagues showed how signals in the pIgR direct its polarized trafficking and how polarized MDCK epithelial cells form three-dimensional structures with lumens and tubules.[4] Mostov and colleagues further found how simple rules cause different branching patterns in kidney as compared to other branching tubular organs [6]