Michael Grunstein

Michael Grunstein
Grunstein in 2006
Born(1946-08-30)August 30, 1946
Romania
DiedFebruary 18, 2024(2024-02-18) (aged 77)
Alma materMcGill University
University of Edinburgh
AwardsMassry Prize (2003),
Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (2018),
Albany Medical Center Prize (2022)
Scientific career
FieldsBiological Chemistry
InstitutionsDavid Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Michael Grunstein (August 30, 1946 – February 18, 2024) was a Romanian-born American biologist and academic who was a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biological Chemistry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.[1][2]

The only surviving child of Holocaust survivors,[3] he obtained his Bachelor of Science degree from McGill University in Montreal, and his PhD from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He did his post-doctoral training at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, where he invented the colony hybridization screening technique for recombinant DNAs in David Hogness' laboratory.[4]

After coming to UCLA in 1975, Grunstein pioneered the genetic analysis of histones in yeast and showed for the first time that histones are regulators of gene activity in living cells.[5] confirming the previous demonstration of the regulation of transcription by histones in vitro [6] His laboratory's studies provided inspiration for the eukaryotic histone code and underlie the modern study of epigenetics.[2] His work, which "catapulted the field forward", was recognized in 2018 with the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research.[7]

Grunstein died on February 18, 2024, at the age of 77.[8]

  1. ^ Morber, J. R. (2011). "Profile of Michael Grunstein". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 108 (46): 18597–18599. Bibcode:2011PNAS..10818597M. doi:10.1073/pnas.1116909108. PMC 3219104. PMID 22084101.
  2. ^ a b "Michael Grunstein, Ph.D. Distinguished Professor, Biological Chemistry, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA". Archived from the original on 2012-04-15. Retrieved 2011-11-17.
  3. ^ Morber, Jenny Ruth (2011). "Profile of Michael Grunstein". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 108 (46): 18597–18599. Bibcode:2011PNAS..10818597M. doi:10.1073/pnas.1116909108. PMC 3219104. PMID 22084101.
  4. ^ Grunstein, M.; Hogness, D. S. (1975). "Colony hybridization: A method for the isolation of cloned DNAs that contain a specific gene". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 72 (10): 3961–3965. Bibcode:1975PNAS...72.3961G. doi:10.1073/pnas.72.10.3961. PMC 433117. PMID 1105573.
  5. ^ Han, M.; Grunstein, M. (23 December 1988). "Nucleosome Loss Activates Yeast Downstream Promoters in Vivo". Cell. 55 (6): 1137–1145. doi:10.1016/0092-8674(88)90258-9. PMID 2849508. S2CID 41520634.
  6. ^ Lorch, Y.; LaPointe, J.; Kornberg, R. (24 April 1987). "Nucleosomes Inhibit the Initiation of Transcription but Allow Chain Elongation with the Displacement of Histones". Cell. 49 (6): 203–210. doi:10.1016/0092-8674(87)90561-7. PMID 3568125. S2CID 21270171.
  7. ^ Grunstein, Michael. "2018 Lasker Awards for Basic Medical Research". Retrieved 24 November 2018.
  8. ^ "Michael Grunstein". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 21 February 2024.