Michael B. Yaffe is an American

scientist A scientist is a person who conducts Scientific method, scientific research to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, ...

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

surgeon In modern medicine, a surgeon is a medical professional who performs surgery. Although there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon usually is also a licensed physician or received the same medical training as ...

, and retired U.S. Army Reserve Medical Corps

Colonel Colonel (abbreviated as Col., Col or COL) is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in charge of ...

. He is currently the David H. Koch Professor of

Biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

Biological Engineering Biological engineering or bioengineering is the application of principles of biology and the tools of engineering to create usable, tangible, economically-viable products. Biological engineering employs knowledge and expertise from a number o ...

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...

and a trauma surgeon at the

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, Massachusetts is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. It was formed out of the 1996 merger of Beth Israel Hospital (founded in 1916) and New England Deaconess Hospital (founded ...

. In 2016, the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

awarded him the

Bronze Star Medal The Bronze Star Medal (BSM) is a United States Armed Forces decoration awarded to members of the United States Armed Forces for either heroic achievement, heroic service, meritorious achievement, or meritorious service in a combat zone. Wh ...

for his services as a trauma surgeon on active duty in Afghanistan. He also treated many of the victims of the

Boston Marathon bombing The Boston Marathon bombing was a domestic terrorist attack that took place during the annual Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. Two terrorists, brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, planted two homemade pressure cooker bombs, w ...

Early life and education

Yaffe graduated from

Pikesville High School Pikesville High School (PHS) is a four-year public high school in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. It is part of the Baltimore County Public Schools consolidated school district. The school was opened in 1964 as Pikesville Senior High ...

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, MD in 1977. He received a

B.S. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

in Materials Science & Engineering from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

in 1981, and his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

and

M.D. Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated M.D., from the Latin ''Medicinae Doctor'') is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the M.D. denotes a professional degree. T ...

from

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Reser ...

in 1987 and 1989, respectively. He then completed a residency at

University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center (UH Cleveland Medical Center) is a large not-for-profit academic medical complex in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center is the main affiliate hospital of Ca ...

and

, as well as a

postdoctoral fellowship A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to p ...

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...

Research

The main focus of Yaffe's research is decoding natural

cell signaling In biology, cell signaling (cell signalling in British English) or cell communication is the ability of a cell to receive, process, and transmit signals with its environment and with itself. Cell signaling is a fundamental property of all cellula ...

pathway behavior using

bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data, in particular when the data sets are large and complex. As an interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combi ...

combinatorial chemistry Combinatorial chemistry comprises chemical synthetic methods that make it possible to prepare a large number (tens to thousands or even millions) of compounds in a single process. These compound libraries can be made as mixtures, sets of individua ...

cell biology Cell biology (also cellular biology or cytology) is a branch of biology that studies the structure, function, and behavior of cells. All living organisms are made of cells. A cell is the basic unit of life that is responsible for the living and ...

physical biochemistry Physical biochemistry is a branch of biochemistry that deals with the theory, techniques, and methodology used to study the physical chemistry of biomolecules. It also deals with the mathematical approaches for the analysis of biochemical reacti ...

structural biology Structural biology is a field that is many centuries old which, and as defined by the Journal of Structural Biology, deals with structural analysis of living material (formed, composed of, and/or maintained and refined by living cells) at every le ...

and

molecular genetics Molecular genetics is a sub-field of biology that addresses how differences in the structures or expression of DNA molecules manifests as variation among organisms. Molecular genetics often applies an "investigative approach" to determine the ...

. The stated goal of his team's research is to "understand how signaling pathways are integrated at the molecular and systems level to control cellular responses."

Career

Besides his professorship at MIT, Yaffe is also an attending surgeon at the

, a teaching hospital of

, and the Chief Scientific Editor of the peer-reviewed science journal ''

Science Signaling ''Science Signaling'' is a Peer review, peer-reviewed scientific journal that is focused on cell signaling and regulation. It is published weekly by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The editor-in-chief (Chief Scientif ...

'', published by the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

. He is a co-founder of Consensus Pharmaceuticals,

Merrimack Pharmaceuticals Merrimack Pharmaceuticals is a pharmaceutical company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. They specialize in developing drugs for the treatment of cancer. Merrimack's first FDA-approved drug was approved in 2015; Onivyde, a liposom ...

, On-Q-ity, the DNA Repair Company, Applied Biomath, and Thrombo-Therapeutics where he also serves as a member of its scientific advisory board. He currently has a number of highly cited articles. Two of Yaffe's papers have over 850 citations, and several others have over 400 citations.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yaffe, Michael B. MIT School of Engineering faculty American traumatologists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Case Western Reserve University alumni