Ronald Vale
Ronald David Vale ( born January 11, 1959 in Hollywood, California) is an American cell biologist at the University of California, San Francisco.
Life
Vale acquired in 1980 at the University of California, Santa Barbara an undergraduate degree in biology and chemistry in 1985 at Stanford University, a Ph.D. in neuroscience. As a postdoctoral fellow, he worked in the neurobiological laboratory of the National Institutes of Health at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Since 1986 he is a professor of cell biology at the University of California, San Francisco, first as Assistant Professor, and since 1992 as an associate professor since 1994 as a full professor, since 1998, in addition to anesthesia. Since 1995, Vale conducts research in addition to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Since 2004 he is professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco.
Work
Vale discovered the first protein of the large family of kinesins. He could make a significant contribution through innovative application of methods of biochemistry, mutagenesis and structural biology for understanding the intracellular motors that move organelles and cause the necessary movements for critical cellular functions such as cell growth and cell division.