Morris J. Birnbaum, MD, PhD

Morris J. Birnbaum, M.D., Ph.D., is a physician-scientist whose work has focused on metabolic regulation and related chronic disease across academic and pharmaceutical research settings. As a faculty member at Harvard Medical School, the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Dr. Birnbaum led studies related to insulin signaling and resistance, the regulation of glucose transport and lipid synthesis, and muscle metabolism. At Pfizer, Dr. Birnbaum served as Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of Internal Medicine, where he was responsible for the discovery and early clinical development of drugs designed to treat diseases such as diabetes, obesity, heart failure and cachexia. Dr. Birnbaum earned an A.B., Ph.D., and M.D. from Brown University and completed an Internal Medicine residency at Barnes Hospital at Washington University in St. Louis, followed by postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco, and Sloan-Kettering Institute in New York.