Leslie Leinwand

Leslie Leinwand
University of Colorado
Boulder, CL, USA

Dr. Leinwand is a Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (MCDB) Professor and Chief Scientific Officer of the Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She was recruited to be Chair of MCDB in 1995. She received her Bachelor's degree from Cornell University, her PhD from Yale University and did post-doctoral training at Rockefeller University. She joined the faculty at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York in 1981 and remained there until moving to Colorado. In Colorado, she co-founded the intercampus University of Colorado Cardiovascular Institute which promotes research and training in cardiovascular disease. She was a co-founder of Myogen, Inc. which was sold to Gilead Pharmaceuticals. More recently, she was a co-founder of Hiberna, Inc, a biotechnology company using pythons and hibernating ground squirrels to develop novel pharmaceuticals. The interests of Dr. Leinwand's laboratory are the genetics and molecular physiology of inherited diseases of the heart and how gender and diet modify the heart. The study of these diseases has required multidisciplinary approaches, involving molecular biology, mouse genetics, mouse cardiac physiology, and the analysis of human tissues. Her laboratory's efforts are well-funded by multiple grants from the National Institutes of Health and her teaching is recognized by funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Professor Program. She is also the Principle Investigator of the HHMI program called the Biological Sciences Initiative which supports undergraduate research, K-12 outreach and educational programs for high school teachers.