David Hirsh is a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, where he also served as department chairman from 1990 until 2003. In addition, during 2001 and 2002, he served as interim dean for research at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. In 2003, he was appointed Columbia University’s first executive vice president for research and served in that capacity until 2011.
After receiving a B.A. from Reed College, he earned a Ph.D. from the Rockefeller
University in 1968. From 1968 to 1971, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. He was a member of the faculty of the University of Colorado from 1971 to 1985.
Hirsh also pursued an active career in the biotechnology industry as a founder of Synergen, Inc., and participating on the boards of several biotechnology companies.
Hirsh serves as chairman of the board of the New York Structural Biology Center, a member of the board of directors of the Agouron Institute and a trustee emeritus of the Rockefeller University.
His scientific research has been in the areas of nucleic acid structure and function and gene activity during early development of C. elegans. His lab studied the maternal and zygotic genes essential for early development as well as stochastic versus programmed determination of cell fates. They developed methods for DNA transformation of C. elegans and also studied RNA processing and unusual patterns of splicing. More recently, they studied the mammalian regulation of cytokines in the inflammatory response during infection and disease.