Dr. Susan Lindquist was a pioneering molecular biologist and esteemed professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who served as director of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research from 2001 to 2004. Born in Chicago in 1949, she earned her undergraduate degree in microbiology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign before completing her PhD in biology at Harvard University in 1976. She established her research career at the University of Chicago where she spent 23 years as a professor before accepting a joint appointment at MIT and the Whitehead Institute. As one of the first women to lead a major independent research organization, Dr. Lindquist broke significant gender barriers while building an internationally renowned research program focused on fundamental biological processes.
Dr. Lindquist made seminal contributions to understanding protein folding mechanisms, particularly through her innovative use of yeast as a model system to study heat-shock proteins and prions. Her groundbreaking research demonstrated how molecular chaperones like Hsp90 and Hsp104 enable proper protein folding and cellular function, revealing their critical role in evolutionary processes and disease states. She pioneered the application of these fundamental discoveries to human diseases, showing how protein misfolding contributes to neurodegenerative conditions and cancer progression. Her laboratory's work established yeast as a powerful living test tube for studying protein-folding diseases and screening potential therapeutic compounds, transforming approaches to understanding and treating conditions ranging from Alzheimer's to drug-resistant cancers.
Beyond her scientific contributions, Dr. Lindquist created an extraordinarily cross-disciplinary research environment that nurtured generations of scientists and physicians committed to translating biological insights into improved disease treatments. She was widely recognized for her leadership, receiving the National Medal of Science in 2010 along with election to the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, and the British Royal Society. Her colleagues remember her as a creative, out-of-the-box scientific thinker with exceptional biological intuition who inspired countless researchers through her fearless approach to challenging biological questions. Though her life was cut short by cancer in 2016, Dr. Lindquist's legacy continues through the numerous scientists she trained and the enduring impact of her work on protein folding biology and its applications to human health.
