Prof. Astar Winoto, PhD

Dr. Astar Winoto is Professor in the Immunology & Pathogenesis Division at the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, U.C. Berkeley. He is also currently the Director of the Cancer Research Laboratory and the Head of the Immunology & Pathogenesis Division.

Dr. Winoto received his PhD degree from California Institute of Technology in 1986. He then performed his post-doctoral research with David Baltimore at Massachusetts Institute of Technology before he moved to U.C. Berkeley in 1990. His honors include the Searle Scholar Award, Cancer Research Institute Investigatorship and the National Science Foundation Presidential Faculty Fellow Award.

Over the years, interests of the Winoto laboratory include gene transcription, molecular mechanism of apoptosis, immune tolerance and lymphoma tumorigenesis. Some of his accomplishments include elucidation of the pathway in apoptosis of developing T cells, elucidation of the gene organization and transcriptional regulation of the T-cell receptor alpha/delta genes, in vivo understanding of the death receptor transduction pathway, characterization of tumorigenesis in PTEN-mediated T cell lymphomas and the initial cloning of many genes like the non-classical major histocompatibility class I genes, Sp2 and Sp3 transcription factors and the p19ink4d cell cycle inhibitor.