Martin Chalfie

Martin Chalfie is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Biological Sciences and past chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University. In 2008 he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Osamu Shimomura and Roger Y. Tsien for his introduction of Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) as a biological marker. Dr. Chalfie was born in Chicago and grew up in Skokie, Illinois. He obtained both his AB and PhD from Harvard University and then did postdoctoral research with Sydney Brenner at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, England. He joined the faculty of Columbia University as an Assistant Professor in 1982 and has been there ever since. He uses the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans to investigate nerve cell development and function, concentrating primarily on genes used in mechanosensory neurons. His research has been directed toward answering two quite different biological questions: How do different types of nerve cells acquire and maintain their unique characteristics? and How do sensory cells respond to mechanical signals? In the course of his studies, he has introduced several novel biological methods in addition to his work with GFP. Dr. Chalfie is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Royal Society of Chemistry (Hon.). He shared the 2006 Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Science from Brandeis University and the 2008 E. B. Wilson Medal from the American Society for Cell Biology with Roger Tsien. He lives in New York City with his wife, daughter, and dog, and spends many hours still trying to master the classical guitar, which he has been studying for 50 years.