Davor Solter

Rudolf Jaenisch

Preserved in 2020-2022 through a CLIR Recordings at Risk grant. This interview video is available for use under a CC0 1.0 Universal license.

Davor Solter is a developmental biologist, particularly known for his pioneering work on mammalian genomic imprinting. He is Emeritus Member and Director at Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics, Visiting International Professor at Siriraj Center for Excellence in Stem Cell Research at Mahidol University, and Visiting Professor at University of Zagreb Medical School. His MD and PhD degrees are from the University of Zagreb, where he worked in the Department of Anatomy and Biology of the School of Medicine between 1963 and 1973. He then began his work at the Wistar Institute, rising to full professorship in 1981. The joined the staff at University of Pennsylvania in 1982, becoming the Wistar Professor of Biology in 1984. He directed the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics from 1991 to 2006. In 2008, he moved to Singapore, where he worked at the National University of Singapore and also served as research director of the Institute of Medical Biology, A*STAR. In 2014, he moved to Thailand where, as of 2018, he holds a visiting professorship at Mahidol University. In 2018, he was awarded the Canada Gairdner International Award. He also won the Rosenstiel Award and the March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology. He is an elected or honorary member of the Academia Europaea, European Molecular Organization, American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Japanese Biochemical Society.

Rudolf Jaenisch is a Professor of Biology at MIT and a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. He is a pioneer of transgenic science, in which an animal’s genetic makeup is altered. Jaenisch has focused on creating genetically modified mice to study cancer and neurological diseases. Dr. Jaenisch received his doctorate in medicine from the University of Munich in 1967 and conducted his postdoctoral work at the Max Planck Institute in Munich, studying bacteriophages. In 1970, he accepted research positions at Princeton University, Fox Chase Institute for Cancer Research and the Salk Institute. In 1977, he became the head of the Department of Tumor Virology at the Heinrich Pette Institute at the University of Hamburg. In 1984, he accepted a position at MIT. He participated in the 2005 science conference in human cloning at the United Nations and serves on the science advisory boards of the Genetic Policy Institute and Stemgent. He also served on the Life Sciences jury for the Infosys Prize in 2010. Some of his awards and honors include the Inaugural Genetics Prize of the Gruber Foundation, Robert Koch Prize, Max Delbruck Medal, and Ernst Schering Prize. He has also been elected as a member of U.S. National Academy of Sciences.