Dr. Frances Brodsky

Biography

Frances Brodsky graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Biochemical Sciences in 1976 and earned her doctorate from the University of Oxford on a Marshall Scholarship in 1979. She conducted her graduate research under immunologist Sir Walter Bodmer, focusing on the use of monoclonal antibodies to study human histocompatibility molecules (HLA). Following her doctoral studies, Brodsky was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard with Jack Strominger and at Stanford University with Peter Parham, where she began her research on clathrin biochemistry. She then worked as a program manager at Becton Dickinson Immunocytometry Systems, leading her own laboratory for four years, concentrating on clathrin, intracellular membrane traffic, and immune response. Brodsky joined the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) as an assistant professor in 1987 and moved through the ranks to full professor by 2014. She transitioned to University College London (UCL) in 2014 where she was the director of the Division of Biosciences until 2020. Brodsky has been involved with numerous advisory committees and study sections for organizations including the U.S. National Institutes of Health. In 2000, she co-founded the scientific journal 'Traffic', specializing in intracellular transport and served on the editorial board of the FEBS Journal. The research in her lab continues to focus on the biochemical and physiological functions of clathrin.

Research Interests

Experience