Speaker

Robert Margolskee received his A.B. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Harvard and his MD-PhD in Molecular Genetics from Johns Hopkins, where he studied with Daniel Nathans. Margolskee’s first faculty appointment was at the Roche Institute. In 1996, he joined the faculty of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where he was also an HHMI Investigator. In 2009, he joined the Monell Center, where he served as Director & President of the Center from 2014-2022. Margolskee has made numerous seminal discoveries in the taste field, including the identification, cloning and characterization of taste receptors, G proteins, and channels. In 1992, his laboratory discovered gustducin, a taste cell-expressed G protein. Subsequently, Margolskee demonstrated that gustducin is critical to the transduction of compounds that humans consider bitter, sweet or umami. Margolskee’s laboratory discovered the T1r3 sweet taste receptor in 2001 and the Trpm5 cation channel in 2002. His group identified a novel transporter-based sweet taste pathway in 2011 and the previously elusive adult taste stem cells in 2013. Much of his current work is focused on taste-like “solitary chemosensory” cells throughout the body.

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