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Stephen P. Goff, Ph.D. is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Higgins Professor of Biochemistry in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, and Professor in the Microbiology Department, at the Columbia University Medical Center. He currently heads a laboratory studying the replication of retroviruses and the functions of the tyrosine kinase oncogenes. His retroviral work has defined many of the replication functions of this important class of viruses, and has enabled the construction of viral vectors that efficiently and stably deliver therapeutic genes into cells. These vectors are widely expected to play major roles in correcting genetic defects in patients. Dr. Goff received the A.B. degree in Biophysics Summa Cum Laude from Amherst College in 1973 . His graduate work with Dr. Paul Berg at Stanford University focused on the genetic analysis of the replication of simian virus 40 (SV40), a DNA tumor virus, and on the use of SV40 as a viral vector for the expression of foreign DNAs in mammalian cells. He received his Ph.D. with distinction from the Department of Biochemistry at Stanford in 1978. He then did postdoctoral work with Dr. David Baltimore at MIT on the replication functions of the murine leukemia viruses for three years as a Jane Coffin Childs fellow, and joined the Columbia faculty in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics in 1981. He received a joint appointment in the Department of Microbiology in 1986, and has been an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Columbia since 1993. In the course of conducting his research Dr. Goff has received several honors and awards. He received an Irma T. Hirschl Career Development Award; a Searle Scholarship; the Harold and Golden Lamport Research Award from Columbia; the Elliot Osserman Award from the Israel Cancer Research Fund and two MERIT awards from the NIH. He served on the Molecular Biology study section of the NIH for four years, was selected as co-organizer of the Cold Spring RNA Tumor Virus meeting for 1988 and 1994, and elected co-chairman of the Animal Cells and Viruses Gordon Conference for 1989. He was elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Microbiology, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Academy of Science. He received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Amherst College in 1997. He has mentored over 25 graduate students and trained over 25 postdoctoral fellows in his laboratories at Columbia. He has served as a reviewing editor for the journals Science, Cell, Journal of Virology, and Virology and reviews submissions for these and many other journals. He holds ten patents on viral and host gene products, serves on the scientific advisory boards of four biotechnology companies, and has authored or coauthored over 250 publications on viral replication, oncogenesis, and gene therapy. |
