Charles Nicholas Serhan is the Simon Gelman Professor of Anaesthesia (Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology) at Harvard Medical School and a Professor of Oral Medicine, Infection and Immunity at Harvard School of Dental Medicine.[1] Serhan is the Director of the Center for Experimental Therapeutics and Reperfusion Injury at Brigham and Women's Hospital.[1]
The focus of Serhan's research are Specialized Pro-Resolving Mediators (SPMs), which are "inflammation-fighting molecules in the body derived from essential fatty acids".[6] While working with Mats Hamberg and Bengt Samuelsson at the Karolinska Institute, Serhan helped discover lipoxin[7] the first of the SPMs to be elucidated.[8] Since this initial discovery, Serhan has identified additional mediators including Resolvins, Maresins, and Protectins.[9]
Serhan became a faculty member at Harvard Medical School in 1987[3] and the Director of the Center for Experimental Therapeutics and Reperfusion Injury at Brigham and Women's Hospital (CET&RI).[1] The CET&RI's mission is: "To identify novel mediators, pathways, and their cellular receptors and targets critical in promoting resolution of inflammation and reperfusion tissue injury and establish their relation to human disease".[10]
Serhan was awarded the John Vane Medal from The William Harvey Research Institute in 2008.[11] In 2016, he received the Ross Prize in Molecular Medicine.[12] He was awarded the International Eicosanoid Research Foundation's 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award.[13] Serhan was the American Society for Investigative Pathology (ASIP) Rous-Whipple Award recipient in 2018[14] and became an Honorary Life Member of the Society for Leukocyte Biology in 2019.[15] In 2022, Serhan delivered the Hans L. Falk Memorial Lecture at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.[16]
