Andrew Paul Feinberg

Biography

Andrew Feinberg studied mathematics and humanities at Yale in the Directed Studies honors program, and he received his B.A. (1973) and M.D. (1976) from the accelerated medical program at Johns Hopkins University, as well as an M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins (1981). He performed a postdoctoral fellowship in developmental biology at UCSD, clinical training in medicine at University of Pennsylvania, and genetics research and clinical training at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Feinberg discovered epigenetic alterations in human cancer with Bert Vogelstein in 1983. He was a Howard Hughes investigator at University of Michigan from 1986-1994, when he returned to Johns Hopkins as King Fahd Professor of Molecular Medicine in the Department of Medicine. His work includes the discovery of human imprinted genes, loss of imprinting (LOI) in cancer, and the molecular basis of Beckwith Wiedemann syndrome (BWS), the paradigm of epigenetic cancer syndromes. His discovery of epigenetically altered progenitor cells has led to a paradigm shift in our understanding of carcinogenesis. More recently, he has pioneered studies of the epigenetic basis of disease generally, establishing the first epigenome center in the U.S. He is Director of the Center for Epigenetics in the Institute of Basic Biomedical Sciences at Johns Hopkins, King Fahd Professor of Medicine, Molecular Biology & Genetics and Oncology, as well as Biostatistics in the Bloomberg School of Public Health, member of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, and he holds an Adjunct Professorship at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. His honors include election to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as membership on the ISI most cited authors list, a MERIT Award of the National Cancer Institute, a Doctor of Philosophy (Hon. Caus.) from Uppsala University, the President's Diversity Recognition Award of Johns Hopkins University, a Doctor of Philosophy (Hon. Caus.) from the Karolinska Institute, an Inaugural Gilman Scholar of Johns Hopkins University, and the Feodor Lynen Medal.

Research Interest

Epigenetics in development and disease