Scott D. Emr

Dr. Emr received his Ph.D. degree in Molecular Genetics from Harvard University in 1981. He held positions at the California Institute of Technology (Assistant and Associate Professor; 1983 – 1991) and the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine (Distinguished Professor and Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; 1991 – 2007). In 2007 he was appointed the Frank H.T. Rhodes Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics and the first Director of the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology at Cornell University. Dr. Emr’s research focuses on the regulation of cell signaling and membrane trafficking pathways by phosphoinositide lipids, ubiquitin modifications, and vesicle-mediated transport reactions. His lab was the first to; establish a role for phosphoinositide lipids in the spatial and temporal control of membrane trafficking pathways, identify effector molecules (that contain FYVE and PX domains) that directly bind the lipid PtdIns(3) P, and identify the molecular machinery (ESCRT complexes) required for receptor down-regulation and HIV viral binding.