David D. Sabatini, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Sabatini was born in Bolivar, Argentina. He attended the University of Litoral, where he received his M.D. degree in 1954. In 1960, Dr. Sabatini obtained a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to Yale University to study cytochemistry. In 1966, he was awarded a Ph.D. from Rockefeller University where he remained, as a faculty member in the Laboratory of Cell Biology headed by Dr. George Palade, until 1972 when he became a Professor and Chairman of the Department of Cell Biology at New York University School of Medicine. Since 1987, he has also been the Director of the M.D.-Ph.D. Program at NYU.

A member of several editorial boards and reviewer (past and present) of scientific journals, including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), Journal of Cell Biology, Journal of Cellular Biochemistry, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Biology of the Cell, and Current Opinion in Cell Biology (Membranes), he has authored more than 120 scientific publications. Dr. Sabatini is also the recipient of several scientific wards, including The Samuel Roberts Noble Research Recognition Award (1980), the E.B. Wilson Award of the American Society for Cell Biology (1986), and the Charles Leopold Meyer Grand Prix of the French Academy of Sciences (1989). He is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), a Foreign Associate of the Academie des Sciences (France), and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Academy of Microbiology, and the New York Academy of Sciences.

His administrative responsibilities in different societies or organizations (past and present) include the American Society for Cell Biology (President: 1978-79), New York Society for Electron Microscopy (President: 1971), Harvey Society (President: 1986-87), and the Chairmanship of the Cellular and Developmental Biology Section of the National Academy of Sciences (USA). Dr. Sabatini has also served, or is currently serving, in several scientific advisory boards and committees of granting and philanthropic organizations, including the National Institutes of Health (USA), Irma T. Hirschl Charitable Trust, Public Health Research Institute of New York City, Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund, Searle Scholars Program, The Lita Annenberg Hazen Awards Committee, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Advisory Committee for Open Professorships, Roche Institute of Molecular Biology, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, National Research Council (USA), Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Pew International Fellows Program, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Human Frontier Science Program, Institut Curie, Institut d'Embryologie Cellulaire et Moléculaire (Collège de France), and Institut Pasteur.

Dr. Sabatini's scientific interests lie in the areas of protein traffic and membrane and organelle biogenesis.