Gillian Griffiths, PhD, has been appointed chair of the Department of Cell Biology. On April 1, 2025, Griffiths will join Yale School of Medicine (YSM) from the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research at the University of Cambridge, where she is currently a professor and Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow and previously served as institute director.
A world leader in the fields of cell biology and immunology, Griffiths has made ground-breaking discoveries identifying novel pathways that control polarized secretion from killer T cells of the immune system–cells that underpin the rapid advances in current immunotherapies. Her research revealed a novel role for the centrosome in directing polarized secretion, with remarkable parallels to ciliogenesis, and how receptor signaling is tightly linked to membrane changes that allow cytotoxic T lymphocytes to be serial killers. Collaborations with clinicians have also revealed unexpected players in the secretory pathway used by these important cells. Fascinated by the parallels between different biological systems, Griffiths has shared her delight in moving to the cell biology department that inspired her early in her career.
Griffiths obtained a bachelor’s degree in zoology from University College London (UCL) and a PhD in molecular biology from the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, where she conducted her thesis research with César Milstein, a Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. After earning her PhD, she carried out postdoctoral research at Stanford University before starting her own lab at the Basel Institute for Immunology in Switzerland. She moved to UCL and Oxford where she held Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowships before moving to Cambridge in 2007.
A distinguished member of the scientific community, Griffiths was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society; a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences; a European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) member; and a fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. She currently serves as chair of the Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship Committee and is a member of scientific advisory boards for several cell biology institutes, including the European Institute for Oncology (IEO), Milan, and the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore, and previously served on the Scientific Council, Institut Pasteur, Paris.
Griffiths currently serves on the Board of Reviewing Editors for Science and on the editorial boards for the Journal of Cell Science, BMC Biology, and Current Opinion in Cell Biology. Previously, she served on the editorial board for the Journal of Cell Biology and as editor for Traffic. She also authored The Freedom to Succeed, a review of non-clinical fellowships in the UK by the Academy of Medical Sciences.
Throughout her career, Griffiths has been an exemplary mentor, particularly for women in science, through her lab, teaching, and support of junior group leaders.
Griffiths credits the YSM Department of Cell Biology with providing foundational insights that contributed to her own research. She is looking forward to collaborating with department members to define a vision for the future that will build upon their successes to illuminate new discoveries within cell biology.