curriculum vitae
FRANCES BRODSKY, DPHIL
Professor, UCSF
Departments of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, Pharmaceutical Chemistry, and Microbiology and Immunology
Member
UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center
Education
| Institution | Degree/Position | Year | Subject |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harvard University, Massachusetts | B.A. | 1976 | Biochemistry |
| Oxford University, England | D. Phil. | 1979 | Genetics |
| Harvard University, Massachusetts | Postdoc | 1980 | Biochemistry |
| Stanford University, California | Postdoc | 1980-82 | Structural Biology |
Professional Experience
| Year | Position |
|---|---|
| 1976-1979 | Graduate Student with Dr. W.F. Bodmer, Genetics Laboratory, Oxford, U.K. |
| 1979-1980 | Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. J.L. Strominger, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA |
| 1980-1982 | Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. P. Parham, Stanford University, School of Medicine, Stanford, CA |
| 1982-1986 | Program Manager, Cell Biology, Research and Development Department, Becton Dickinson Immunocytometry Systems |
| 1987-1991 | Assistant Professor of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Chemistry, School of Pharmacy; Assistant Adjunct Professor of Microbiology, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco. |
| 1991-1994 | Associate Professor of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Chemistry, School of Pharmacy; Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco |
| 1994-Present | Professor of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences and Pharmaceutical Chemistry, School of Pharmacy; Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco |
Honors and Awards
| Year | Achievement |
|---|---|
| 1975 | Dreyfus Fellowship (summer research), Phi Beta Kappa-junior year |
| 1976 | Graduated Summa cum laude in Biochemical Sciences, Harvard |
| 1976-1979 | Marshall Scholarship for study in the United Kingdom |
| 1980-1982 | Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Fund, Postdoctoral Fellowship |
| 1984-1999 | Member, Editorial Board of Human Immunology |
| 1987 | Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association Fund Research Starter Grant |
| 1988-1992 | Pew Scholar award |
| 2005 | Boehinger-Ingelheim Lecturer, McGill University |
| 2005-2007 | Honorary Professor, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland |
| 2006-2011 | Member, Searle Scholars Advisory Board |
| 2006 | Margaret Pittman Lecturer, National Institutes of Health |
| 2006 | Visiting fellow, King's College Cambridge |
| 2007 | WICB Senior Career Recognition Award, American Society for Cell Biology |
Publications
For a list of selected publications please see our publications page
profile
In 1972 Brodsky entered Radcliffe where she majored in Biochemical Sciences. At Harvard Brodsky designed her own curriculum, combining science with her other intellectual passion, comparative language and literature. Brodsky's interest in immunology led her to work in the laboratory of Paul Gottlieb at MIT for her undergraduate thesis. Following college, Brodsky went to England on a Marshall scholarship for graduate study at Oxford. Of the two institutions, Brodsky observes, "Harvard was relatively unstructured, but Oxford was completely unstructured," which delighted her, because she could spend all her time in the lab. Gottlieb had brokered an introduction to immunologist Walter Bodmer (later "Sir Walter") and Brodsky took a position with Bodmer for her fellowship. She reflects that she was "extremely lucky" to be at Oxford when work on monoclonal antibodies began. The year before she arrived, Kohler and Milstein published their first paper on monoclonal antibodies; Bodmer's lab, along with Alan Williams', picked up on this new technology early on. Brodsky's graduate work applied this new technology to study human histocompatability molecules (HLA), eventually providing Brodsky an entree to cell biology.
Upon completion of her doctorate, Brodsky returned to Harvard to work with Jack Strominger. At the prompting of a former undergraduate mentor, crystallographer Steve Harrison, Brodsky initiated using monoclonal antibodies to study the protein clathrin (from the Greek word Clathrate meaning "basket-like," because it forms basket-like structures). Though Brodsky realized that she "didn't really know much about cell biology," she became increasingly interested in it while characterizing the antibodies. This work continues today. Recently Jeremy Wilbur in Brodsky's lab, with collaborators in Robert Fletterick's and Matt Jacobson's labs at UCSF, have completed the crystal structure of the central portion of the clathrin molecule, which in combination with a part of the structure solved by Tomas Kirchhausen, Steve Harrison and colleagues at Harvard completes the structure of the whole molecule.
After a year at Harvard, Brodsky took a post-doc in the lab of Peter Parham, a member of the junior faculty at Stanford. Brodsky spent two years in her second post-doc at Stanford where she pursued her work on both clathrin and HLA. There, she combined the discipline of immunology into her cell biology and discovered, at the interface of the fields, that clathrin controls intracellular transport that is important for how histocompatability molecules stimulate an immune response.
Following her post-doc in 1982, Becton Dickinson Immunocytometry Systems hired Brodsky as a Program Manager where she ran her own lab. She explains that Becton "had been a medical supply company, and was branching out into basic research in monoclonal antibodies and cell surface biology." She learned a great deal of cell biology by attending the ASCB Annual Meeting to meet others in the field, ("infiltrating" cell biology, as she thinks of it).
After four years in industry, Brodsky made the then-uncommon decision to go back to the academic world when she took a position as Assistant Professor at UCSF. Brodsky is now a full professor with joint appointments in the departments of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences and Pharmaceutical Chemistry in the School of Pharmacy, and in Microbiology & Immunology in the School of Medicine.
Brodsky relished her return to academics for three reasons: to be able to teach and work with graduate students, to have diverse colleagues with whom to interact, and because it forces her to broaden her perspective. "When you work in industry you tend to be quite focused, but with teaching you have to generalize and know a little about a lot more subjects." Research in the Brodsky lab continues to focus on the biochemical and physiological functions of clathrin, including characterization of a second isoform of clathrin that plays a key role in regulation of human glucose metabolism with significance to type 2 diabetes. Collaborative research with the Parham laboratory continues to focus on membrane trafficking aspects of natural killer cell function.
Following her post-doc in 1982, Becton Dickinson Immunocytometry Systems hired Brodsky as a Program Manager where she ran her own lab. She explains that Becton "had been a medical supply company, and was branching out into basic research in monoclonal antibodies and cell surface biology." She learned a great deal of cell biology by attending the ASCB Annual Meeting to meet others in the field, ("infiltrating" cell biology, as she thinks of it).
After four years in industry, Brodsky made the then-uncommon decision to go back to the academic world when she took a position as Assistant Professor at UCSF. Brodsky is now a full professor with joint appointments in the departments of Biopharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmaceutical Chemistry in the School of Pharmacy, and in Microbiology & Immunology in the School of Medicine.
Brodsky has served on the Allergy & Immunology Study Section at the NIH and the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Disease Board of Scientific Councilors, which reviews laboratories at the NIAID. She is currently serving as a member of the Membrane Biochemistry and Protein Procesing Study Section at the NIH and as a member of the National Advisory Committee for the Pew Scholars Program. Previous service appointments include grant advisory committees for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America and the Searle Scholars Program.
Brodsky co-founded the scientific journal, Traffic in 2000, which specializes in intracellular transport and after serving as Co-editor for five years now serves as Review Consultant. Brodsky is also the author of three scientific mystery novels (1997-2001) under the pen name of B.B. Jordan.
Edited and updated in 2010 from an interview published in the ASCB Newsletter in 2000
b. b. jordan
Under the pen name B.B. Jordan, Professor Frances Brodsky has written a series of scientific mystery novels featuring crime-solving scientist Dr. Celeste Braun.
Principle Investigation
ISBN: 978-0425160909
Published: Nov 1997
"On the cutting edge of medical research,
a shattering debut novel featuring virologist Dr Celeste Braun."
Secondary Immunization
ISBN: 978-0425171189
Published: Oct 1999
"An electrifying new novel featuring virologist Dr Celeste Braun."
Triplet Code
ISBN: 978-0425179208
Published: Apr 2001
"B. B. Jordan is a dazzler" - Jon A. Jackson, author of Dead Folks