Joseph Schlessinger
| Joseph Schlessinger | |
|---|---|
| Born | Josip Schlessinger 26 March 1945 Topusko, PFR Yugoslavia (present-day Republic of Croatia) |
| Nationality |
Israel United States |
| Fields | Pharmacology |
| Notable awards | Ciba-Drew Award (1995) |
Joseph Schlessinger (born Josip Schlessinger; 26 March 1945) is a Yugoslav-born Israeli-American biochemist and biophysician. He is chair of the Pharmacology Department at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, as well as the founding director of the school's new Cancer Biology Institute. His area of research is signaling through tyrosine phosphorylation, which is important in many areas of cellular regulation, especially growth control and cancer. Schlessinger's work has led to an understanding of the mechanism of transmembrane signaling by receptor tyrosine kinases and how the resulting signals control cell growth and differentiation.
Josip Schlessinger was born in Topusko to Jewish parents. His father, Imre, was from Slatina; Imre's first wife and child had been deported to Auschwitz. Schlessinger's mother Rivka was from Bugojno; her first husband had been murdered by the Ustaše. Imre and Rivka met in a labor camp in 1943 on the Adriatic island of Rab and joined a group of Jewish Partisans.
When Schlessinger was born on 26 March 1945 he was wrapped in a British military parachute. He was named for his grandfather. After World War II the family moved to Osijek, where another son, Darko David, was born. Imre Schlessinger once made a joke at the expense of Tito and was sentenced to several months in jail.
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