Robert Tjian '71
Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology, UC Berkeley
Robert Tjian, a professor of molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley since 1979, also served as president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) from 2009 to 2016. Trained as a biochemist at Berkeley and Harvard, he was a pioneer in studying how genetic information in our DNA is decoded to produce mRNA and proteins. During more than four decades as faculty at Berkeley, he taught thousands of undergrads while doing biomedical discovery research. He has received many scientific awards, including election to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, California Scientist of the Year, and HHMI investigator. He also co-founded Tularik, Inc. and more recently, Eikon Therapeutics, while launching several other biotech companies as a science partner of venture capital firm The Column Group.