UTPAL BANERJEE, Ph.D.
Chair, Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology

Dr. Utpal Banerjee is a Professor and the Chair of Molecular, Cell & Developmental Biology Department at UCLA. He is also a Professor in the Biological Chemistry Department in the Geffen School of Medicine and a member of the Molecular Biology Institute. Utpal received his Ph.D. in Chemistry at Caltech. His transition into Biology was earmarked by his postdoctoral research training with Dr. Seymour Benzer at Caltech where he initiated research in molecular neurogenetics of eye development in Drosophila. Utpal joined UCLA in 1988. He has received the Goldshield, Luckman and Eby awards for teaching and Margaret Early, Sloan, Mcknight and ACS career awards for his research. Dr. Banerjee is among 20 professors nationally to be recognized as HHMI Professors and awarded a $1 million grant to creatively introduce undergraduate students to research training. Earlier work from Utpal’s laboratory identified the son of sevenless (sos) gene that links RTKs to the oncogene Ras. His laboratory has also identified novel means by which different signal transduction cascades combine to distinguish between neural and non-neural cell types. They have also made critical discoveries in identifying transcription factors and signaling components that are responsible for the hematopoiesis in Drosophila and begun to use zebrafish as an experimental system for studying blood development and leukemia.