Sankar Ghosh Elected to National Academy of Medicine

Sankar Ghosh, PhD, the Silverstein and Hutt Family Professor of Microbiology and chair of the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, was elected to the National Academy of Medicine for his pioneering studies of NF-kB, a family of central regulators of immune cells, and establishing strategies to target NF-kB in the treatment of inflammatory diseases and cancer.

Ghosh is one of 100 new members announced by the Academy today, Oct. 17, 2022. Ghosh was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021 and the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2008 and was previously a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. He joined Columbia in 2008.

Because the immune system lies at the heart of many diseases, research in the Ghosh lab seeks a deep understanding of the pathways that establish, maintain, and fine-tune the activity of immune cells.

NF-kB plays an important role in regulating inflammation and immune responses, and Ghosh’s discoveries in the field have implications for the treatment of arthritis, colitis, dermatitis, asthma, and other inflammatory diseases and diseases such as cancer and muscular dystrophy.

Ghosh was the first to purify and clone members of the NF-kB family, a key advance that allowed researchers better understand the functions of the regulators. He elucidated the mechanisms by which NF-kB is regulated and established the critical role of NF-kB in T-regulatory cells. His recent work has illuminated novel mechanisms and pathways by which the NF-kB pathway influences immune responses to cancer.

The National Academy of Medicine, founded in 1970 as the Institute of Medicine, is one of three academies that make up the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in the United States. Election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.