Allan Jacobson, Ph.D.

Dr. Allan Jacobson is Chair of the Department of Microbiology and Physiological Systems at the UMass Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts. He obtained a Ph.D. at Brandeis University, did postdoctoral research at MIT, and joined the founding UMass faculty in 1973. His research in the ensuing decades has been focused on the post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression, at first exclusively in model systems, but subsequently in inherited disorders. To transform his research interests into products, Dr. Jacobson co-founded Applied bioTechnology, Inc. in 1982 and PTC Therapeutics Inc. in 1998. At PTC, he currently serves as a director and chair of its Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Jacobson’s contributions have been acknowledged with the UMass Chancellor’s Medal for Distinguished Scholarship, a MERIT Award from the NIH, and election to the American Academy of Microbiology.