Laurie Glimcher

Who is Laurie Glimcher?

Laurie H. Glimcher, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, is the current dean of Weill Cornell Medical College. She succeeded Antonio M. Gotto Jr. in January 2012.

While at Harvard, Glimcher was the Irene Heinz Given Professor of Immunology at the Harvard School of Public Health, and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Clinically, she is a specialist in osteoporosis. She received her bachelor's degree at Radcliffe College in 1972 and her M.D. at Harvard Medical School in 1976.

Her research, according to her biography at Harvard, "uses biochemical and genetic approaches to elucidate the molecular pathways that regulate CD4 T helper cell development and activation. ... The Glimcher laboratory defined the genetic bases of both IL-4 and IFNg expression in T cells. They identified the proto-oncogene c-maf as the transcription factor responsible for Th2-specific IL-4 expression [and]...discovered the first Th1-specific transcription factor, T-bet and demonstrated that this single factor is a master-regulator of IFNg gene expression and the Th1 phenotype."