Leonard H. Rome

Leonard H. Rome is a cell biologist and biochemist who has been a faculty member of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, since he joined the Department of Biological Chemistry there, in 1979. He became a full professor in 1988 and has also served as the Senior Associate Dean for Research in the Geffen School of Medicine from 1997 to 2012. He is the Associate Director of the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) since 2004, and was Interim Director from 2007-2009. In addition, he served from 2001 to 2005 as University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Associate Vice Chancellor for Research for the Life and Health Sciences.

Rome earned his B.S. in chemistry and M.S. and Ph.D. in biochemistry (biological chemistry) at the University of Michigan Health System with William E.M. Lands. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health, where he worked with Elizabeth F. Neufeld on lysosome biogenesis and lysosomal storage diseases. His laboratory research at UCLA centers on a novel cellular organelle called a ''vault'' which he and a former postdoc, Nancy Kedersha, discovered in 1986. Rome is the past chair of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Group on Research Advancement and Development (GRAND). Provided by Wikipedia