During its annual meeting on Oct. 19, the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) announced election of 100 new members, including MIT faculty member Michael Yaffe and six MIT alumni: Steven Allen Abrams ’79; Susan L. Ettner PhD ’91; Diane Medved Harper ’80, SM ’82; Albert Icksang Ko ’81; Jennifer Lewis ScD ’91; and Alexander Marson PhD ’08.
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.
Michael Yaffe, David H. Koch (1962) Professor of Science, is the founding director of the MIT Center for Precision Cancer Medicine, as well as a professor in the MIT departments of Biology and Biological Engineering and a member of the MIT Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. He is also an attending surgeon and intensivist at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he specializes in injury and surgical oncology, and was recently appointed as senior advisor to the director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) for the NCI Intramural Research Program.
The NAM recognized Yaffe for “the discovery of phospho Ser/Thr-binding domains in proteins and how they regulate signaling pathways controlling the cell cycle or in response to stress.” His contributions in this area were pivotal to “the emergence of systems biology and bioinformatic approaches to map motifs across the kinome and characterize biochemical principles that determine kinase-substrate selectivity.”
Yaffe’s work in cell signaling more broadly seeks to understand how signaling pathways that control DNA damage responses, survival, cell cycle progression, and immune activation are integrated at the molecular and systems levels to control tumor outcomes after treatment, and to translate discoveries into more effective cancer drug combinations and treatment strategies.
Yaffe earned his doctoral degree in biophysical chemistry and his medical degree from Case Western Reserve University. Before joining the MIT faculty in 2000, he completed residencies in both general surgery at University Hospitals of Cleveland and surgical oncology at New England Deaconess Hospital, a fellowship in surgical critical care at Harvard Medical School’s Harvard-Longwood Critical Care Program, and a postdoctoral fellowship with Lewis Cantley at Harvard Medical School. Yaffe is a decorated veteran of the war in Afghanistan and retired as a colonel from the U.S. Army Reserve Medical Corps in 2021. He is also the scientific editor-in-chief of Science Signaling, an elected member of the Association of American Physicians, and a 2021 MacVicar Faculty Fellow.
MIT alumni who were elected to the NAM for 2026 are affiliated with the following departments:
- Steven Allen Abrams ’79 is an alumnus of the Department of Biology.
- Susan L. Ettner PhD ’91 is an alumna of the Department of Economics.
- Diane Medved Harper ’80, SM ’82 is an alumna of the departments of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering.
- Albert Icksang Ko ’81 is an alumnus of the departments of Chemistry and Biology.
- Jennifer Lewis ScD ’91 is an alumna of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
- Alexander Marson PhD ’08 is an alumnus of the Department of Biology.
Established originally as the Institute of Medicine in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine addresses critical issues in health, science, medicine, and related policy, and inspires positive actions across sectors.
“I am thrilled to welcome these outstanding health and medicine leaders into the National Academy of Medicine,” said NAM President Monica M. Bertagnolli. “Their extraordinary talent and commitment to advancing evidence-based guidance and solutions for our country’s greatest health-care challenges will strengthen our efforts to improve health for all.”
