Frank Slack's Biography

Frank Slack, Director, Institute for RNA Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Cancer Center/Harvard Medical School

Frank Slack received his B.Sc. from the University of Cape Town in South Africa, before completing his Ph.D. in molecular biology at Tufts University School of Medicine. He started work on microRNAs as a postdoctoral fellow in Gary Ruvkun’s laboratory at Harvard Medical School, where he co-discovered the second known microRNA, let-7. He is currently Director, Institute of RNA Medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC)/Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA. Professor Slack has pioneered various aspects of the microRNA field and continues to make important contributions to this aspect of post-transcriptional control of gene regulation in stem cell development, cancer and aging. For example Professor Slack and colleagues were co-discoverers of the second known microRNA, let-7 (Reinhart et al Nature, 2000), and the co-discoverers of the first known human microRNA (Pasquinelli et al. Nature, 2000).