morris F. white, Ph.D.

Dr. White is a Professor of Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Boston, Harvard Medical School, and an Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. White and his colleagues were the first to identify the insulin receptor substrate (IRS) family of proteins, a key protein family that mediates the downstream signaling pathways initiated by the binding of Insulin to the insulin receptor. His findings suggest major new mechanisms for the treatment of diabetes, especially type II diabetes, a disease which is reaching epidemic proportions in the developed world. Furthermore, since diabetes is a complicated, multi-system disease, Dr. White’s award-winning studies also may shed new light on certain metabolic and other disorders, such as obesity and fertility, which have common or highly related signal transduction mechanisms.

Dr. White received both his undergraduate degree and his Ph.D. degree from the University of Michigan. He performed a research fellowship in Medicine at the Harvard Medical School, and was subsequently appointed Professor of Biochemistry in the Department of Medicine at Harvard. Dr. White has served on the editorial boards of several leading journals, including the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Diabetes, and Molecular Endocrinology. Dr. White is a former Pew Scholar, and also won numerous awards and honors in the field of diabetes research, most notably the Eli Lilly Award for Excellence in Scientific Achievement from the American Diabetes Association (1999), and the Excellence in Diabetes Research Award from the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation (1995).