Intercellular transfer of proteins and RNA

Randy Schekman is a Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He studied the enzymology of DNA replication as a graduate student with Arthur Kornberg at Stanford University. His current interest in cellular membranes developed during a postdoctoral period with S. J. Singer at the UC Diego. Among his awards are the Gairdner International Award, the Albert Lasker Award in Basic Medical Research and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which he shared with James Rothman and Thomas Südhof. He served as the Editor of the Annual Reviews of Cell and Developmental Biology and as Editor-in-Chief of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and eLife. Schekman leads an effort supported by the Sergey Brin Family Foundation to identify and support basic research on the mechanisms of Parkinson’s Disease initiation and progression (https://parkinsonsroadmap.org).

Schekman’s laboratory investigates the mechanism of vesicular traffic in the secretory pathway in eukaryotic cells. Currently the lab investigates the mechanism of biogenesis of extracellular vesicles including how small RNAs are sorted for secretion in exosomes and the means by which these vesicles are internalized and function in target cells.