Dr. Robert Tjian is a professor in the Molecular and Cell Biology Department at the University of California, Berkeley and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Throughout the past twenty years, Dr. Tjian's studies have combined Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Genetics and Structural Biology to dissect the structure and function of the eukaryotic transcriptional apparatus. Dr. Tjian's work has brought him membership to several distinguished scientific societies including the Academia Sinica of China (1990), the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (1991) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1997). He has received numerous awards and distinctions, including the Pfizer Award for Enzymology in 1987, the 1988 Cancer Research Award from the Milken Family Medical Foundation and the National Academy of Sciences Monsanto Award for Molecular Biology in 1991. In 1994, he was the California Scientist of the Year. Dr. Tjian also received The Passano Award for Biological Sciences and the Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Science (1995). In 1999, Dr. Tjian was honored with the General Motors Alfred P. Sloan Jr. Prize and that same year he won the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University. In 1991, Professor Tjian, together with Drs. Goeddel and McKnight, founded Tularik which was acquired by Amgen, Inc. in 2004. |