 | Richard Strohman, born in Brooklyn NY in 1927, is now emeritus professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California at Berkeley. Trained in biology and at the Biophysical Labs at Columbia University in NYC (PhD,1959), his research career has been devoted to fundamental questions of cell and tissue growth regulation, and cellular differentiation using molecular and cell approaches. He has been chair of UCB Zoology Department (1973-1976) and Director (1976-79) of Berkeley's Health and Medical Sciences Program. While on leave from UC in 1990 he was Research Director for The Muscular Dystrophy Association's international effort to combat genetic neuromuscular diseases. Retired in 1991, he continues to teach courses dealing with the interface between biology and medicine, and the growing crisis in theoretical biology. His view is that genetic determinism, the major component of biological reductionism, is increasingly unable to contend with newer findings of biological complexity and that a new and more holistic scientific theory of living systems is required. He is now preparing a book on this subject. He is known internationally as the author of many papers dealing with these issues and several of them have been translated by the University of Hamburg for distribution in Germany. During his active research years he was equally distinguished for his work on muscle fiber growth, development, and regeneration, and is co-editor with Stewart Wolf of a book entitled, Gene Expression In Muscle, (1983). Plenum Press, N.Y. & London. He was the 1992-93 Distinguished Wellness Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. This lecture and other papers dealing with the limits of genetic reductionism in biology and medicine have received wide acclaim and have identified him as one of the leading figures thinking and writing on new opportunities for an understanding of life. |
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