Clifford Tabin

Clifford James Tabin (born 1954) is chairman of the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School.

Education Tabin was educated at the University of Chicago where he was awarded a BS in physics in 1976. In Weinberg's lab, Tabin constructed murine leukemia virus, the first recombinant retrovirus that could be used as a eukaryotic vector.

Entrepreneurial activities In 2023, Dr. Cliff Tabin co-founded Somite Therapeutics, a biotechnology company that integrates artificial intelligence with stem cell biology to develop novel cell replacement therapies.

Research Tabin's research investigates the genetic regulation of vertebrate development, combining classical methods of experimental embryology with modern molecular and genetic techniques for regulating gene expression during embryogenesis.

Previously Tabin has worked on retroviruses, homeobox genes, oncogenes, developmental biology and evolution. Early in his research he investigated limb regeneration in the salamander, and described the expression of retinoic acid receptor and Hox genes in the blastema. Comparative studies by Ann Burke in his lab showed that differences in boundaries of Hox gene expression correlated with differences in skeletal morphology. The Tabin laboratory adjoins the laboratory of Connie Cepko.

Awards and honors Tabin was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 2014. His nomination reads:

Tabin has also been awarded the Edwin Conklin Medal in 2012, a nuclear physicist who worked with Enrico Fermi on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico during World War II. He has a brother, Geoff Tabin, and two children. Tabin appears as himself in a BBC Horizon programme titled Hopeful Monsters.