Nobel Laureate Dr. James E. Rothman ’67 will return to the Hilltop on Friday, September 27, as the 2024 Lasell Visiting Alumnus. Rothman is the Sterling Professor of Cell Biology and Professor of Chemistry at Yale University. Pomfret School has the honor of learning from one of the world’s most distinguished biochemists and cell biologists as Rothman delivers an all-school lecture, visits classes, and serves as the keynote speaker at the dedication ceremony for VISTA (Venue for Innovation, Science, Technology, and Academics).

Rothman graduated from Pomfret after his junior year and enrolled at Yale College, concentrating his studies in mathematics and physics with the intention of becoming a theoretical physicist. During his junior year, he reluctantly took an introductory biology course under his father’s advice and was amazed by the instantly accessible frontier of molecular biology research.

After graduating from Yale, Rothman initially enrolled in Harvard Medical School, intending to focus on research, and ultimately joined their PhD program. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) before starting as a professor in the Department of Biochemistry at Stanford University.

It was at Stanford that Rothman began his groundbreaking research in cell biology. “Everybody told me it was nuts to go and try to reproduce the mysterious complexities that occur in a cell-free extract,” he recalls. “I had five years of failure, really, before I had the first initial sign of success.”

In 2013, Rothman was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discoveries related to the key molecular machinery responsible for the transfer of materials among compartments within cells. This work provided the conceptual framework for understanding such diverse and important processes as the release of insulin into the blood, communication between nerve cells in the brain, and the entry of viruses to infect cells. He shares the prize with Randy W. Schekman and Thomas C. Südhof.

Rothman is the chair of the Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Cell Biology and the founding director of the Nanobiology Institute. In addition to Yale and Stanford, Rothman has taught at Princeton University and Columbia University. He also founded and chaired the Department of Cellular Biochemistry and Biophysics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

The Lasell Visiting Alumni Program brings alumni home to Pomfret to share their time, talent, knowledge, and real-world experiences with students and faculty. Funding for the program is made possible through the generosity of the late Chester Lasell ’54.
 

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