Abstract
Jim Manfredi’s research efforts have focused on p53, the most commonly mutated gene in human tumors, as well as the interplay between p53 and its negative regulator, Mdm2. In addition, more recent efforts have involved studying the role of the Cdc25 phosphatase family in cancer. Jim’s laboratory was among the first to provide a molecular mechanism for transcriptional repression by p53. He has also been exploring p53-independent roles for Mdm2 in oncogenesis. Jim received his AB in Biology from Cornell University and his MS and PhD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology. Jim received his PhD working with Dr. Susan Horwitz, with whom he performed some of the earliest mechanistic studies on taxol. These investigations were recognized with a predoctoral fellowship from the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association. As a fellow with the Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Cancer Fund and the American Heart Association, Dr. Manfredi went on to train in the laboratory of Dr. Daniel Branton at Harvard University studying the role of coated vesicles in endocytosis. He returned to the area of cancer research with further postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Carol Prives at Columbia University, where he began his studies on the molecular biology of the tumor suppressor p53. He is currently a Full Professor with Tenure in the Departments of Oncological Sciences with a joint appointment in the Department of Developmental & Regenerative Biology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He is a member of the teaching faculty of the Graduate School of Biological Sciences as well as the Tisch Cancer Institute. With Dr. Prives, Jim organized the Sixth International Mdm2 Workshop at the New York Academy of Sciences in October 2011.