Robert J. Lefkowitz, MD, the Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Medicine and professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry at Duke University School of Medicine, will address graduates and their guests as the commencement speaker at Feinberg’s 2026 commencement ceremony on Monday, May 18.
Lefkowitz is most well-known for his detailed characterizations of the sequence, structure and function of the β-adrenergic and related receptors and for the discovery and characterization of the two families of proteins which regulate them, the G protein-coupled receptor kinases and β-arrestins.
In 2012, Lefkowitz and his former trainee Brian Kobilka, MD, currently the Hélène Irwin Fagan Chair of Cardiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discoveries revealing the underlying mechanisms of G protein-coupled receptors. Today, more than half of all prescription drugs make use of this kind of receptor.
Lefkowitz earned his MD at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1966. He then completed an internship and general medicine residency at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in 1968 and served as a clinical and research associate at the National Institutes of Health from 1968 to 1970. He then completed a general medicine residency and cardiology fellowship in 1973 at the Massachusetts General Hospital before joining faculty at the Duke University School of Medicine that same year.
Lefkowitz is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has received numerous honors and awards, including the Gairdner Foundation International Award, the American Heart Association’s Basic Research Prize and Research Achievement Award, the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research, the Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine, and the National Medal of Science.