UW News

June 19, 2000

Dr. Alan M. Weiner will chair Department of Biochemistry at the UW School of Medicine

UW Health Sciences/UW Medicine

Dr. Alan M. Weiner, currently a professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry and of genetics at Yale University School of Medicine, has been named chair of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Washington (UW) School of Medicine . His appointment becomes effective later this summer, pending UW Board of Regent?s approval.

Weiner has served for the past ten years as editor-in-chief of the prestigious scientific journal, Molecular and Cellular Biology, and has been on the editorial boards or served as editor of several other major research journals. He has also chaired the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Molecular Biology Study Section.

His research fields include genome structure in higher organisms, the causes of chromosome fragility, and the function of certain types of RNA. Weiner is also interested in the evolution of early genomes and questions regarding the origin of life. He is a prolific researcher and writer.

Born in Massachusetts, Weiner graduated from Yale College summa cum laude with a degree in chemistry before going on to graduate school at Harvard University, where he earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology. He held postdoctoral fellowships at Stanford Medical School and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He joined the faculty at Yale in 1976.

Weiner is married to Dr. Nancy Maizels, a distinguished molecular biologist and an award-winning teacher of biochemistry at Yale School of Medicine. Maizels, a Seattle native, will join the faculty of the UW Department of Immunology. Maizels and Weiner have two daughters, one entering tenth grade at Lakeside School, and the other a senior at Reed College in Portland.

Weiner succeeds Dr. Kenneth Walsh, professor of biochemistry, who served as chair from 1992 until this year.