Matthew Hirschey, Ph.D.
Matthew Hirschey is a tenured Associate Professor at Duke University in the Departments of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Nutrition, and Pharmacology & Cancer Biology, and is a faculty member of the Duke Molecular Physiology Institute where his lab is located. He is also the inaugural Director of the Center for Computational Thinking at Duke.
He obtained a Bachelor of Science at the University of Vermont and received several undergraduate awards, including a research thesis in Chemistry. Later, he earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, Santa Barbara with Alison Butler where he combined inorganic semiconductor research with microbiology, exploring new applications in biomaterials research. He was a post-doctoral research fellow with Eric Verdin at the Gladstone Institutes at the University of California in San Francisco, where he studied the function of acetylation and deacetylation by the enzyme SIRT3 in the mitochondria.
Dr. Hirschey, who started his lab at Duke in 2011, studies how cells integrate nutrient sensing and metabolism. He is particularly interested in how metabolites and chemical modifications control metabolism. Metabolic regulation is important for several physiological states and disease processes, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and the aging process.
In 2021, Dr. Hirschey was named the Director of the Center for Computational Thinking at Duke University. This new initiative develops programs and partnerships to enable computational education for Duke students and beyond. This University-wide initiative enhances computational thinking across all disciplines of study and synergizes with his lab's computational work.
His work has appeared in several leading journals, including Nature, Science, Cell Metabolism and Molecular Cell. He has received numerous awards including an Innovator Award from the American Heart Association, a New Scholar in Aging Award from the Ellison Medical Foundation, the Helmholtz Young Investigator in Diabetes (HeIDi) Award, and the Glenn Award. His work is currently supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Duke Cancer Institute.
He is committed to supporting all voices in science and making academic science a place that supports all scientists, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status, ability, age, sexual orientation, culture, gender, gender identity, or other personal characteristics.
He lives with his wife and children in Durham, NC, USA.
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