The Rockefeller University is a private university which focuses primarily on basic research in the biomedical fields and offers graduate and postgraduate education. It is located between 63rd and 68th Streets along York Avenue, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, New York. Its current president is Sir Paul Nurse.
Twenty-three Nobel Prize winners have been associated with the university.
The university has been the site of many important scientific breakthroughs. Rockefeller scientists, for example, established that DNA is the chemical basis of heredity, discovered blood groups, showed that viruses can cause cancer, founded the modern field of cell biology, worked out the structure of antibodies, developed methadone maintenance for individuals addicted to heroin, devised the AIDS "cocktail" drug therapy, and identified the weight-regulating hormone leptin.[1]
The original Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research was founded in 1901 by the oil baron and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, who had earlier founded the University of Chicago in 1889. The Rockefeller family has maintained strong links with the institution throughout its history?David Rockefeller, to give just one example, is the current Honorary Chairman and a Life Trustee. The Institute changed its name to The Rockefeller University in 1965, after expanding its mission to include education.
Upon its organization in 1901, Simon Flexner assumed the directorship.
Faculty are assigned to any of six different research areas defined by the university. However, due to the highly interdisciplinary culture that Rockefeller University fosters, many faculty are listed under several research areas.
In the mid 1970's, Rockefeller succeeded in attracting a few prominent academics in the humanities, most notably Saul Kripke, a notable logician, philosopher of language, and expositor of the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. More recently, its faculty were winners of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1999, 2000, and 2001, and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2003.
David Baltimore, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physiology & Medicine in 1975 for the discovery of reverse transcriptase. Has served as president of both The Rockefeller University and the California Institute of Technology.
Barbara Ehrenreich, social commentator and author of the 2001 book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America.
Jonathan Lear, the John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought and professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, who specializes in Aristotle and psychoanalysis.
Robert Sapolsky, Stanford Professor, MacArthur Grant recipient, and writer of numerous books on stress and natural history.
Chernow, Ron. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., London: Warner Books, 1998.
Hanson, Elizabeth. The Rockefeller University Achievements: A Century of Science for the Benefit of Humankind, 1901-2001. New York: The Rockefeller University Press, 2000.
Rockefeller, David. Memoirs, New York: Random House, 2002.
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