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Jefferson Health professor named National Academy of Inventors fellow
Emad S. Alnemri, PhD, has been named a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, a program established in 2012 to award academic innovators who have been prolific in creating inventions that impacted quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society.
Alnemri — the Thomas Eakins professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center – Jefferson Health — is an internationally recognized expert in programmed cell death. His research over the past 25 years has illuminated the molecular pathways of apoptosis, leading to the discovery of human caspases, protease enzymes that cleave cellular proteins during apoptosis and inflammation.
Alnemri’s research on the function of inflammatory caspases also has led to the discovery of inflammasome complexes involved in the production of inflammatory cytokines and innate immune response to pathogens. He holds 34 U.S. and 11 foreign patents and has nine technologies that are sublicensed to Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Alnemri also received the 2011 Jefferson Medical College Research Career Achievement Award, and he was named an ISI (Thomson Reuters) Highly Cited Researcher in Molecular Biology and Genetics in 2008.
He recently received a $3 million NIH grant and a $300,000 grant from the Dr. Ralph and Marian Falk Medical Research Trust to study one of his discoveries: a novel caspase-3 substrate called DFNA5.
His new research aims to examine the role of DFNA5-mediated cell death in tumor recognition by the immune system to develop effective and durable anticancer therapies.
The 2018 National Academy of Inventors fellows will be inducted in an April 11, 2019, ceremony at Space Center Houston during the academy’s annual meeting in Houston.