Our Scientists

Robert B. Darnell, MD, PhD

Investigator / 2002–Present

Research Area

Medicine and Translational Research, Neuroscience

Current Research

Molecular Neuro-oncology

Robert Darnell studies degenerative brain disorders that are provoked by an immune response to certain cancers. This has led to the discovery of brain-specific systems for regulating RNA that may be co-opted by cancer cells, and the development of new methods to study RNA regulation in living tissues.

Biography

Dr. Darnell is also Robert and Harriet Heilbrunn Professor in Cancer Biology at the Rockefeller University; Head of the Laboratory of Molecular Neuro-oncology, also at Rockefeller; Director for Science Programs, Rockefeller University Hospital; and holds appointments at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He is also President and Scientific Director, New York Genome Center.

Dr. Darnell received his undergraduate degree in biology and chemistry at Columbia University and his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Washington University School of Medicine. He trained in internal medicine at Mount Sinai Medical School in New York and in neurology at Cornell University Medical School. Among numerous awards, he has received the Derek Denny-Brown Neurological Scholar Award, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Clinical Scientist Award in Translational Research, and the NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award.