Frederick Alt

---

title: "Frederick Alt" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["american-geneticists", "harvard-medical-school-faculty", "living-people", "brandeis-university-alumni", "stanford-university-school-of-humanities-and-sciences-alumni", "members-of-the-united-states-national-academy-of-sciences", "howard-hughes-medical-investigators", "year-of-birth-missing-(living-people)", "fellows-of-the-american-academy-of-microbiology", "searle-scholars-program-recipients", "members-of-the-national-academy-of-medicine"] description: "American geneticist" topic_path: "science/biology" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Alt" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American geneticist ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox scientist"]

Field	Value
image
birth_date
death_date
workplaces	{{plainlist
education	{{plainlist
doctoral_advisor	Robert Schimke
academic_advisors	David Baltimore
spouse
children	J. Kenji López-Alt
other_names	Fred Alt
alt	Frederick Alt
doctoral_students	Karen M. Frank
::

| name = | image = | birth_date = | birth_place = | death_date = | death_place = | death_cause = | citizenship = | nationality = | fields = | workplaces = {{plainlist|

• Harvard Medical School
• Columbia University
• Boston Children's Hospital | education = {{plainlist|
• Brandeis University
• Stanford University | doctoral_advisor = Robert Schimke | academic_advisors = David Baltimore | known_for = | awards = | spouse = | children = J. Kenji López-Alt | other_names = Fred Alt | alt = Frederick Alt | doctoral_students = Karen M. Frank Frederick W. Alt is an American geneticist. He is a member of the immunology section of the National Academy of Sciences and a Charles A. Janeway Professor of Pediatrics, and Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. He is the Director of the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the Boston Children's Hospital. He is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, since 1987.

Career

Alt completed his undergraduate studies at Brandeis University, graduating in 1971. He then went on to earn a Ph.D. in Biology from Stanford University in 1977 while under the research direction of Robert Schimke. He performed his postdoctoral work in David Baltimore's laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). From 1982 to 1991 he was on the faculty at Columbia University and then moved to Harvard Medical School.

Alt's research interest is in maintenance of genome stability in cells of the mammalian immunological system, particularly antigen receptor variable region gene assembly in developing B and T lymphocytes, immunoglobulin heavy chain class switch recombination (CSR), and somatic hypermutation in activated mature B lymphocytes.

Personal life

Alt is the son-in-law of organic chemist Koji Nakanishi, former Centennial Professor of Chemistry and chair of the Chemistry Department at Columbia University.

Alt is also the father of the chef and food writer J. Kenji López-Alt.

Awards, memberships and honors

He has received many awards, this is a select list:

• Clowes Memorial Award from the American Association for Cancer Research
• Rabbi Shai Shacknai Prize from The Hebrew University
• Leukemia & Lymphoma Society de Villiers International Achievement Award
• Irvington Institute Immunology Award
• National Cancer Institute Alfred K. Knudson Award for pioneering contributions that have revolutionized the field of Cancer Genetics
• AAI-Huang Meritorious Career Award, American Association of Immunologists
• Excellence in Mentoring Award, American Association of Immunologists.
• 2004 – Pasarow Foundation Prize for Extraordinary Achievement in Cancer Research
• 2007 – Novartis Prize for Basic Immunology for his discoveries on B cell development and antigen responses
• 2009 – William B. Coley Award for New Discoveries in Immunology from the Cancer Research Institute
• 2014 – 44th annual Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Research
• 2015 – Szent-Györgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research, from the National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR)
• 2019 – BioLegend Herzenberg Award, for "exemplary research contributions to the field of B cell biology", American Association of Immunologists.
• 2023 – Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize

The Cancer Research Institute of New York gives an annual prize in his honor, the Frederick W. Alt Award for New Discoveries in Immunology.

Alt is a member of:

• U.S. National Academy of Sciences
• American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• American Academy of Microbiology

References

References

1. "Frederick W. Alt, PhD - DF/HCC".
2. "How new loops in DNA packaging help us make diverse antibodies".
3. "Pioneering geneticist Frederick Alt '71 wins 44th Rosenstiel Award".
4. "Alt Laboratory".
5. "Children's Hospital bio".
6. (2022-09-23). "J. Kenji López-Alt: Seattle's Famous Japanese American Cooking Star". The North American Post.
7. Robertson, Blair Anthony. (2015). "Science becomes delicious in 'The Food Lab'".
8. (2018-08-29). "Laureates".
9. (October 6, 2009). "CRI Announces Winner of 2009 Frederick Alt Award for New Discoveries in Immunology".
10. (2016-02-03). "Frederick W. Alt received the 2015 Szent-Györgi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research". Chinese Journal of Cancer.
11. "AAI-BioLegend Herzenberg Award".
12. "AAI Career Awards".
13. [https://www.uni-frankfurt.de/124912621/2023_Alt_Schatz Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize 2023]

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::