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Jeffrey L. Benovic, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, has been named the chair of Jefferson’s newly restructured Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.  He previously was a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology and professor and vice chair in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Jefferson.

Dr. Benovic currently is interim deputy director of Jefferson’s Kimmel Cancer Center. He has been leader of the Cell Biology and Signaling Program at the Kimmel Cancer Center since 1993 and director of the Molecular Pharmacology and Structural Biology Graduate Program at Jefferson since 1998. 

Dr. Benovic studies G protein-coupled receptors, a class of proteins that control many biological processes, including nerve cell signal transmission, sensory perception, development, and cardiovascular and immune response. Such receptors are targets for approximately one-half of the drugs currently on the market. Dr. Benovic focuses on understanding how these receptors are regulated and how problems with this regulation can contribute to disease, including cancer and various cardiovascular, neurological and endocrine disorders.

“We are pleased to have Jeff Benovic as the chair for the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology,” says Thomas J. Nasca, M.D., dean of Jefferson Medical College.  “His commitment to the university and its students, as well as his extensive research experience, make him the perfect choice to lead this department.”

Prior to coming to Jefferson in 1991, Dr. Benovic was an assistant professor at the Fels Institute for Cancer Research at Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia.  He was an associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology at Jefferson from 1991 to 1995.

Dr. Benovic earned a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry from the Pennsylvania State University in 1976 and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Duke University in 1986.

He has received numerous awards in his career, including a NIH Research Training Grant Award, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Fellowship, and was an Established Investigator of the American Heart Association.

He has written more than 50 book chapters and reviews, as well as nearly 200 peer reviewed publications in such journals as Cell, Nature, Science and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He has lectured widely.

Dr. Benovic is currently an Associate Editor for Biochemistry and on the editorial board of Molecular Pharmacology, the Journal of Cell Biology and the Journal of Receptors and Signal Transduction. He serves as a manuscript reviewer for a number of journals, including Cell, Science, Cancer Cell and Nature. He also is a member of several scientific societies, including the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

His current research is supported by the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.