Steven R. Tannenbaum

Steven R. Tannenbaum was born in New York City in 1937 and educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he earned his Ph.D, in 1962 and has continued as a faculty member up to the present time. An early career in Food Chemistry and Nutritional Biochemistry led to many research papers and books on food proteins and to several awards from the Institute of Food Technologists. Following an initial appointment as Assistant Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Science Dr. Tannenbaum was promoted to Full Professor in 1974. For the past twenty-five years Prof. Tannenbaum's research has been in the area of chemical carcinogenesis. His laboratory was the first to discover the endogenous synthesis of nitrogen oxides, its mammalian origin, and its stimulation by the immune system. More recently his work has centered on the role of endogenous nitrogen oxides in mutation and cancer. In addition to this area of research his laboratory has also pioneered the development and application of proteins as biomarkers of human exposure to environmental and endogenous carcinogens. He is currently Professor of Chemistry and Toxicology in the Department of Chemistry and the Division of Bioengineering and Environmental Health (BEH) and Co-Director of BEH. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 1996.

Steven Tannenbaum is Co-Director of the Division of Bioengineering and Environmental Health, Underwood-Prescott Professor of Toxicology and Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at M.I.T., where his academic career has spanned thirty-five years. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, USA. His general areas of research are in mechanisms of biochemical activation of chemicals to electrophilic forms that bind to DNA and proteins; application of biomarkers to the molecular epidemiology of disease, the role of endogenous nitric oxide in cytotoxicity and DNA damage, and ultramicro methods in analytical biochemistry. Professor Tannenbaum is the author or coauthor of approximately 350 scientific papers, 10 patents, has edited seven books, has helped organize international conferences, and is on the editorial board of three cancer research and one chemical toxicology journal. At M.I.T., Professor Tannenbaum teaches graduate courses in general toxicology and drug and carcinogen metabolism. He has also consulted extensively for the chemical, food, and pharmaceutical industries.