Doctor Lazar graduated from Syosset High School, and after just three years received his undergraduate degree in Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then received a Doctor of Philosophy in Neurosciences and an Doctor of Medicine from Stanford University.
Doctor Mitchell Lazar is the Sylvan Eisman Professor of Medicine and Genetics, the Chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism, and the Director of the Institute for Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism at the University of Pennsylvania. He trained in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and in Endocrinology at the Massachusetts General Hospital before joining the University of Pennsylvania faculty in 1989. Doctor Lazar"s research focus is on the epigenomic regulation of gene expression and metabolism.
He is particularly interested in nuclear receptors, which are master regulators of metabolism.
Doctor Lazar has made seminal findings related to the basic mechanisms of nuclear receptor action, as well as their role in obesity and diabetes, including the discovery of the hormone called resistin. He has served as Associate Editor of Diabetes, and is on the editorial boards of Genes & Development, Cell Metabolism, Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism, Endocrine Reviews, Joint Commission International, and Science.
He is the recipient of the 2014 Transatlantic Medal of the Society for Endocrinology.
Doctor Lazar has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians, and has received two National Institutes of Health Merit Awards, the Van Meter Award of the American Thyroid Association, the BMS Freedom to Discover Award, the Richard Weitzman Award and the Edwin B. Astwood Award Lecture from The Endocrine Society, and the Stanley Korsmeyer Award of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 2006, and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008.
Doctor Lazar has given named lectures throughout the world, and is a former member of the Board of Scientific Councilors of the National Institutes of Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney Diseases.
