Dean's Distinguished Lecture Series

Hashim M. Al-Hashimi, PhD

Dr. Al-Hashimi is the Roy and Diana Vagelos Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, associate dean for biomedical graduate education, and the director of biomedical graduate training in the Vagelos Institute of Biomedical Research Education at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. He was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and grew up in Greece, Italy, Jordan, and the United Kingdom. In 2000, he received his PhD in Biophysical Chemistry from Yale University working with Dr. James H. Prestegard. There he developed methods based on the measurement of residual dipolar couplings in partially oriented systems to study the structure and dynamics of proteins. He continued his studies as a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Dinshaw J. Patel at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, where he turned his attention toward using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to study the structural dynamics of nucleic acids. A year into his postdoctoral training, Dr. Al-Hashimi accepted an offer to join the faculty at the University of Michigan. He rose quickly through the ranks and was named the Robert L. Kuczkowski Professor of Chemistry and Biophysics. In 2014, Dr. Al-Hashimi joined the faculty at the Duke University School of Medicine, where he was the James B. Duke Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry and director of the Duke Center for RNA Biology. He joined the Columbia faculty in May 2022.

As a principal investigator, Dr. Al-Hashimi and his trainees pioneered the development and application of NMR approaches for visualizing how the three-dimensional structures of DNA and RNA molecules change with time at the atomic level. These technological advances resulted in a deeper and more quantitative understanding of many fundamental cellular processes, including the mechanisms of cancer-causing mutations and gene regulation by non-coding RNAs. He also pioneered NMR approaches for identifying RNA-targeting therapeutics using RNA dynamics, and in 2009, he co-founded Base4 Inc. to enable RNA-targeted drug discovery.

He is the recipient of the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science, the Founder’s Medal in NMR Spectroscopy, the Agilent Thought Leader Award, and the National Academy of Sciences Award in Molecular Biology. He is a Fellow of the Biophysical Society and the International Society of Magnetic Resonance. In 2011, Popular Science Magazine listed Dr. Al-Hashimi among the ‘Brilliant 10’ scientists and engineers in the USA.  

2022–23  Harris Wang

2021–22  Carol Prives

2020–21  Henry M. Colecraft

2019–20  Wesley Grueber

2018–19  Donna Farber

2017–18  Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic

2016–17  Rene Hen

2015–16  Steven L. Reiner

2014–15  Frank Costantini

2013–14  Richard Mann

2012–13  Steven A. Siegelbaum

2010–11  Andrea Califano

2008–09  Robert S. Kass

2007–08  Marian Carlson

2004–05  James E. Rothman

2003–04  Andrew Marks

2002–03  Eric Gouaux

2001–02  Vincent Racaniello

2000–01  Virginia E. Papaioannou

1999–2000  Lloyd A. Greene

1998–99  Kathryn Calame

1997–98  Gary Struhl

1996–97  Michael D. Gershon

1995–96  Thomas M. Jessell

1994–95  Riccardo Dalla-Favera

1993–94  Barry Honig

1992–93  Argiris Efstratiadis

1991–92  Stephen P. Goff

1990–91  Arthur Karlin

1989–90  Frederick Alt

1988–89  Richard Axel

1987–88  Wayne Hendrickson

1986–87  Reinhold Benesch

1985–86  Elvin Kabat

1984–85  Harold Ginsberg

1983–84  Eric Kandel

1982–83  Brian Hoffman

About the Dean's Distinguished Lecture Series