James rothman nobel lecture

James E. Rothman is Professor and Chairman in the Department of Chemistry at Yale University. Rothman was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts in 1950. As a teenager, he was fascinated by theoretical physics, but decided suddenly to switch to biology as an undergraduate at Yale University after an introductory lecture by Fred Richards. He then made another switch while at Harvard University, from a medical degree to the pursuit of a scientific career, and with the guidance of the brilliant Eugene Kennedy, he investigated how the lipid bilayer of cell membranes is formed. He was awarded a PhD in 1976.

During a brief post-doctoral fellowship with Harvey Lodish at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rothman learnt to work with viruses and cell-free systems – thus acquiring skills that would later prove invaluable for identifying molecules involved in vesicle trafficking.

Rothman was drawn to his first professorial appointments at Stanford University’s Department of Biochemistry Randy w. schekman.