Roderick MacKinnon

Tufts President Lawrence S. Bacow awarded Roderick MacKinnon an honorary degree during the University's 2002 Commencement ceremonies on Sunday, May 20, 2002

Medford/Somerville, Mass. [05.20.02] -- Roderick MacKinnon, distinguished graduate of Tufts University School of Medicine, Class of 1982, and recipient of the 1999 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, your scholarship has altered dramatically our understanding of the role that cellular ion channels play in health and disease.

   A physician by training and a detective at heart, you have drawn upon your Tufts medical education to uncover fields that previously eluded definition. You were the first to see the potassium ion channel. Your discoveries are major breakthroughs in the scientific arena and have created new intelligence about the body's electrical system, information that will influence human health and health care for generations to come. Biophysicists world-wide recognize and admire your work for its innovative approach and disciplined process.

   Tufts salutes you today, Roderick MacKinnon, for the honor you bring to this university through the superior quality of your science, for the bold thinking that you apply in your laboratory, for the outstanding scholarship you achieve at Rockefeller University, and for the truly unprecedented contributions that you have made to the medical community and to all of humankind. It is my pleasure to present to you the degree of Doctor of Science, Honoris Causa.