Gladstone Scientist Elected to Prestigious Engineering Institution

Leor Weinberger, PhD, an associate investigator at the Gladstone Institutes, has been elected to the 2015 class of the College of Fellows for the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). This honor is bestowed upon the top 2% of medical and biological engineers, reflecting significant and innovative contributions to the field of biomedical engineering.

AIMBE advises government and industry groups on public policy and product development, with the mission of providing “leadership and advocacy in medical and biological engineering for the benefit of society.” Gaining membership to the College is a rigorous, multi-step process, and only candidates who are approved by 75% of current members may be inducted. Dr. Weinberger joins Gladstone’s Todd McDevitt, PhD, in this illustrious group of engineers from academia, industry, and government.

Dr. Weinberger, who is also an associate professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, has devoted his career to developing novel therapeutic strategies to treat HIV infection. This includes the groundbreaking discovery of the use of “noise” to awaken latent HIV from host cells so that the virus can be killed by anti-retroviral therapy.

“Leor has distinguished himself as an innovative researcher, dedicating his knowledge and skills to advancing treatment for several human viruses, including HIV and CMV,” says Warner Greene, MD, PhD, the director of the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology. “His election to AIMBE honors these many contributions.”

Before joining Gladstone in 2011, Dr. Weinberger was an assistant professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego. He has previously been named an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellow and a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences.

Dr. Weinberger will be inducted to AIMBE in a ceremony at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC in March.