Fredonia alumnus Dr. Michael Marletta was recently elected as one of 28 new Resident members at the American Philosophical Society’s Annual Spring Meeting in Philadelphia.
Dr. Marletta is the CH and Annie Li Chair in the Molecular Biology of Diseases, Professor of Chemistry, and Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. at the University of California, San Francisco, in 1978, and his Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and Chemistry from Fredonia in 1973. He also serves as vice chair of the Fredonia College Foundation Board of Directors.
The American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States, was founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin for the purpose of “promoting useful knowledge.” The American Philosophical Society’s current activities reflect the founder’s spirit of inquiry, provide a forum for the free exchange of ideas, and convey the conviction of its members that intellectual inquiry and critical thought are inherently in the public interest. Early members included George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall. In the 19th century, John James Audubon, Robert Fulton, Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison, and Louis Pasteur were among those elected. Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, and George Marshall hint at the scientific, humanistic, and public accomplishments of 20th century members. The first woman was elected in 1789- the Russian Princess Dashkova, president of the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg.
Today the society has 1,025 elected members, 858 resident members and 167 international members from more than two dozen foreign countries. Only 5,573 members have been elected since 1743. Since 1900, more than 240 members have received the Nobel Prize.
Working on the interface of chemistry and biology, Dr. Marletta has made groundbreaking contributions to the understanding of an essential cellular control system, nitric oxide signaling. Nitric oxide functions as a regulator in numerous biological processes, including blood vessel homeostasis, immune defense, and a broad range of neural functions. He has discovered the key nitric oxide producing enzyme, nitrogen oxide synthase and the critical cellular target of nitrogen oxide, soluble guanylate cyclase. His work has revealed essential mechanistic features of heme and nitric oxide binding proteins and of S-nitrosation. A guiding principle of his research has been his astute use of evolutionary relationships and of structural analysis to discover and illuminate molecular mechanisms. His studies on prokaryotic nitrogen synthase and bacterial guanylate cyclase have yielded important insights into function and specificity of their mammalian counterparts.
