John Coffin

Who is John Coffin?

John Coffin, PhD, is an American virologist. Raised in Boston, Massachusetts, Coffin is a professor of Genetics and Molecular Microbiology at Tufts University in Boston. He is also the director of the HIV Drug Resistance Program of the National Cancer Institute and serves as Special Advisor to the Director of the Center for Cancer Research at NCI. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a recipient of American Cancer Society professorship. He has advised policy committees at the national level regarding virus-related matters. Coffin was programme committee chair for the 18th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in 2011.

Coffin received his undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University. He performed PhD research with the late geneticist and Nobel Prize winner Howard Temin at the University of Wisconsin. His postdoctoral advisor was Charles Weissmann of the University of Zürich. Coffin began his faculty appointment at Tufts in 1975. Coffin's HIV/AIDS research reflects his interests in molecular biology, virus-host relationships, pathogenesis and viral evolution and population dynamics.