Joseph Schlessinger

Joseph Schlessinger (born Josip Schlessinger; 26 March 1945) is a Yugoslav-born Israeli-American biochemist and biophysician. He is chair of the Pharmacology Department at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, as well as the founding director of the school's new Cancer Biology Institute. His area of research is signaling through tyrosine phosphorylation, which is important in many areas of cellular regulation, especially growth control and cancer. Schlessinger's work has led to an understanding of the mechanism of transmembrane signaling by receptor tyrosine kinases and how the resulting signals control cell growth and differentiation.

Personal life
He is married to Irit Lax, also a professor in the pharmacology department at Yale. They each have two children by previous marriages. In a 2009 interview with a Croatian daily newspaper Jutarnji list, he said, "Basically I am atheist. I grew up Jewish and I truly belong to the Jewish culture, but I'm not a follower of any world religion. Religion does not interest me at all."

Awards and recognition

• Michael Landau Prize (1973),
• Sara Leady Prize (1980),
• Hestrin Prize (1983),
• Levinson Prize (1984),
• Ciba-Drew Award (1995),
• Antoine Lacassagne Prize (1995),
• Taylor Prize (2000),
• Honorary doctorate from the University of Haifa (2002),
• Dan David Prize (2006).
• Member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (2009).
• Hope Funds for Cancer Award of Excellence for Clinical Development (2012)
• BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Biomedicine category in the Biomedicine category (2014)

He has lectured at many institutions, including the Harvey Society (in the 1993–1994 Harvey Lectures series)and the 2006 Keith R. Porter Lecture of the American Society for Cell Biology.

In 2009, Schlessinger was given an award by then-President of Croatia Stjepan Mesić for outstanding service in promoting Croatia in the international scientific community and for the contribution within Croatian biomedical sciences.

In September 2003, The Guardian listed him as number 14 in the "Giants of Science".