Bruce Alberts

Dr. Bruce Alberts (b. 1938) is an American biochemist. He is noted particularly for his extensive study of the protein complexes that allow chromosomes to be replicated, as required for a living cell to divide. He was President of the National Academy of Sciences from 1993 to 2005.

Career
He graduated from Harvard College, with a degree in biochemical sciences, and earned a doctorate from Harvard University in 1965. He then went to the University of Geneva as a postdoctoral fellow to work with Richard Epstein on genes of phage T4 involved in DNA replication. In 1966, he joined the Department of Biochemical Sciences at Princeton University as an Assistant Professor. In 1972, he became an Associate Professor and in 1974 a full Professor. In 1976, he accepted a position as professor and vice-chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco. In 1980, he was awarded an American Cancer Society Lifetime Research Professorship. In 1985, he was named chair of the Department.

Alberts has long been committed to the improvement of science education, dedicating much of his time to educational projects such as City Science, a program seeking to improve science teaching in San Francisco elementary schools. He has served on the advisory board of the National Science Resources Center a joint project of the National Academy of Sciences and the Smithsonian Institution working with teachers, scientists, and school systems to improve teaching of science as well as on the National Academy of Sciences' National Committee on Science Education Standards and Assessment.

He has served in different capacities on a number of prestigious advisory and editorial boards, including as chair of the Commission on Life Sciences, National Research Council. Until his election as President of the National Academy of Sciences in 1995 he was president-elect of the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He currently serves on the advisory board of the Campaign to Defend the Constitution.

For the period 2000 to 2009, Dr. Alberts is the Co-chair of the InterAcademy Council, a new advisory institution in Amsterdam governed by the presidents of 15 science academies from around the world.

Bruce Alberts will be the 2007 Commencement speaker at Beloit College in Beloit, WI.

Publications
He has had a productive research career in the field of DNA replication and cell division,

His textbook  Molecular Biology of the Cell, now in its 4th Edition, is the standard cell biology textbook in most universities. This book and its more basic, undergraduate counterpart  Essential Cell Biology have been translated into various languages. He served as the President of the National Academy of Sciences for two terms from 1993 until 2005.