Alan Attie is among ten faculty awarded 2025-26 WARF Named Professorships. The award comes with $100,000 and honors faculty who have made major contributions to the advancement of knowledge, primarily through their research endeavors, but also because of their teaching and service activities. Award recipients choose the names associated with their professorships.

Attie is the Henry and Annrita Lardy Professor of Biochemistry and has focused his career on research into cholesterol and lipid metabolism, as well as obesity and diabetes. The first part of Attie’s research career was focused on mutations that affect cholesterol and lipoprotein metabolism. In mid-career, he decided to move into the field of diabetes. He wanted to deploy the tools of mouse genetics to address a dichotomy associated with type 2 diabetes—although most people with type 2 diabetes are obese, most obese people do not develop diabetes. Thus, he decided to use genetics to discover genes responsible for obesity-induced diabetes. Attie’s work in genetics won him the appointment of Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and several other honors. He has trained more than 50 Ph.D. students and post-doctoral scholars. They have gone on to careers in academia, the biotech industry, and patenting/licensing. In addition to research mentorship, Attie has maintained an interest in innovative classroom teaching and has mentored graduate students and post-docs in the development of their teaching skills.

Read more about Attie in this article written by the Department of Biochemistry.

Read more about the WARF Named Professorships and other recipients.