In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies (CBIS), President Shirley Ann Jackson is inviting campus to a symposium and reception on Wednesday, September 10, beginning at 10:30 a.m. Keynote speaker Dr. Scott Friedman ’76 will give a talk titled “The Borderless World of Engineering, Biomedicine and Healthcare—Reflections of a Rensselaer Graduate.”
Friedman graduated cum laude from Rensselaer in 1976 with a bachelor’s degree in biology. He went on to earn his medical degree at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 1979 and completed his internal medicine residency at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston in 1982. He completed a clinical gastroenterology fellowship and liver research fellowship at University of California, San Francisco, in 1983 and 1986, respectively.
Scott Friedman ’76
Friedman was appointed assistant professor of medicine at University of California, San Francisco, in 1986 and then associate professor of medicine at University of California, San Francisco, in 1992. He was named professor of medicine and director of liver research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 1997. In 2001, he was appointed chief of the division of liver diseases at Mount Sinai Hospital. Since 2012, he has also served as the dean of therapeutic discovery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Friedman’s pioneering research has identified the key cell type responsible for scar production in the liver. He has held numerous national leadership positions, including president of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, and is respected as a clinician, mentor, and scientist. He has also served as a senior Fulbright Fellow at the Weizmann Institute and was on the senior advisory council for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism from 2008 to 2013. In 2003 he was awarded the International Hans Popper Prize for Liver Research. He has published more than 300 scientific articles and is one of the most-cited researchers in the history of liver disease research.
In celebration of the 10th anniversary of CBIS, according to Director Deepak Vashishth, “We will be hosting events throughout the year that reflect the transformative influence of our people and partnerships.”
The talk will be held in the CBIS auditorium, and a reception will be held following Friedman’s talk.