James E. Darnell
Edwin James Darnell, Jr. ( born September 9, 1930 in Columbus, Mississippi) is an American cell biologist and professor at the Rockefeller University in New York City.
Life
Darnell acquired in 1955 at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, an MD; first research on the polio virus, he yielded at Harry Eagle at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a facility of the National Institutes of Health, more in François Jacob at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Academic positions led him to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City and Columbia University, also in New York City. In 1974 he was appointed professor of cell biology at Rockefeller University in New York City.
Work
Darnell's research interests lie in the area of signal transduction and virus replication. Darnell rendered 1962/1963 first evidence for RNA processing, in 1971 he and his colleagues were able to define events that lead to the formation of mRNA, rRNA and tRNA. Discovered the JAK -STAT signaling between the cell surface and the nucleus. He used interferons as a model cytokine.
Darnell is considered as a patron of young scientists. He was at his university, establish the Rockefeller University, many junior professors, assistant professors, many of these later received the full professor or other life -time positions.