Download Leon Rosenberg

Leon E. Rosenberg, M.D.
Leon E. Rosenberg, M.D. has faculty appointments in the Department of Molecular Biology,
as well as the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. His career
experiences reflect involvement with government, academia, and industry. In 1959 he began a
six-year association as an investigator with the metabolism service of the National Cancer
Institute. In 1965 he began his association with Yale University when he was appointed
assistant professor of Medicine. He was named professor of Human Genetics, Pediatrics, and
Medicine in 1972, the same year he helped establish the Department of Human Genetics and
became its first chairman. Dr. Rosenberg was the dean of the Yale University School of
Medicine from 1984 to 1991. Between 1991 and 1998 he worked for the Bristol-Myers
Squibb Company as President of the Pharmaceutical Research Institute and as Senior Vice
President to Scientific Affairs.
A specialist in inherited metabolic disorders in children, Dr. Rosenberg and his colleagues
conducted pioneering laboratory investigations into the molecular basis of several inherited
disorders of amino acid and organic acid metabolism. For example, they discovered that
children with a potentially lethal disorder of organic acid metabolism suffer from defective
metabolism of vitamin B12. They went on to demonstrate that supplements of B12 were
remarkably beneficial clinically. Using another rare disorder as a model system, he and his
associates provided crucial insights into the basic mechanism by which proteins synthesized
in the cytoplasm are transported into mitochondria.
Dr. Rosenberg is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
and the Institute of Medicine. He is a past president of the American Society of Human
Genetics, the Association of American Physicians, and the Funding First Initiative of the
Mary Lasker Trust.