Juan Salvador Bonifacino

Juan S. Bonifacino is the Head of the Section on Intracellular Protein Trafficking (SIPT) of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), National Institutes of Health (NIH). His laboratory studies the mechanisms by which proteins and organelles are delivered to different cellular compartments, and the diseases that arise from dysfunction of these mechanisms.

For more than three decades, Bonifacino’s research group has investigated the signals and adaptor proteins that govern the sorting of proteins to endosomes, lysosomes, lysosome-related organelles such as melanosomes, and specialized domains of the plasma membrane in polarized cells, including neurons. His work has led to the discovery of novel sorting signals and adaptor proteins, providing key insights into the molecular basis of diseases such as Hermansky–Pudlak syndrome type 2 (HPS-2). In addition, his group has identified critical components of the machinery responsible for retrograde transport from endosomes to the trans-Golgi network (TGN). His research has expanded to elucidate the molecular mechanisms regulating endosome and lysosome dynamics in both neuronal and non-neuronal cells, and how defects in these processes contribute to neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders.

Bonifacino has contributed extensively to the scientific community through service roles, including membership on the ASCB Council and leadership of various scientific conferences. He has held editorial positions at leading journals, including Developmental Cell, Molecular Cell, Journal of Cell Biology, Molecular Biology of the Cell, Journal of Biological Chemistry, and Traffic, and has co-edited the books Current Protocols in Cell Biology and Short Protocols in Cell Biology.

In addition to being an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Bonifacino is a fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB).

Bonifacino earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina and subsequently joined the National Institutes of Health.