Jeffrey Flier

Jeffrey Flier is an American physician, endocrinologist; widely cited scientist; the Higginson Professor of Medicine and Physiology at Harvard Medical School; and a Distinguished Service Professor at the same institution.

He graduated in 1964 from the Bronx High School of Science, and 1968 from the City College of New York.

He was in the first entering class of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 1968, and graduated in 1972 with the Elster Prize for highest academic standing.

After two years of internal medicine residency at Mount Sinai Hospital, he spent four years in the Public Health Service as a clinical associate at the National Institutes of Health, completing training in endocrinology and launching a research career.

He moved to Boston in 1978, becoming an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and chief of the Diabetes Unit at Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Hospital.

In 1980 he described a rare case of familial acanthosis nigricans-muscle cramps-acral enlargement syndrome.

Since stepping down as dean, Flier has increasingly contributed policy-oriented publications focusing on a number of issues affecting health care and biomedical research in current times, among them: health care reform and its sustainability, enhancing US health provider workforce, the pros and cons of prevailing credit attribution practices in academia and industry, the realities and options linked to the irreproducibility of research results, improving the institutional handling of scientific misconduct, the obsolescence of distinctions between basic and translational biomedical research, and the complexities behind conflict of interest (COI) disclosure.

Flier has taught, mentored and promoted the career development of diverse trainees, faculty, scientists, physicians, and leaders over several decades.

He has questioned the blanket and often ineffective approach toward DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) initiatives.

He does not support mandatory diversity statements in faculty applications.

He does not support the removal of historic portraits in universities (which are predominantly of white men) in order to provide more inclusive environments for historically underrepresented populations, like women and minorities.

Flier wants fairness for all, and he has critiqued the harmful “cancel culture”.

He and other leaders have asked for an objective and fair-minded adjudication for Dr. David M. Sabatini, a biologist who was fired by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and resigned from the Whitehead Institute and MIT following an allegation of sexual misconduct.

Flier is married to Eleftheria Maratos-Flier.

Much of his research has addressed the pathophysiology of obesity; In 1993, he described the dynamics of obesity in a brown-fat deficient, transgenic mouse model; His most extensive work has related to the biology and pathophysiology of leptin, its physiological role in starvation, and the molecular mechanisms of leptin resistance in obesity.

With Maratos-Flier, he studied the participation of neuropeptide MCH in feeding behavior and energy balance; and the role of FGF21 in metabolic regulation.

With Bruce Spiegelman he discovered an altered production of adipsin in obesity in genetically obese mice.

He subsequently became chief of the hospital's Endocrinology Division, vice chair for research of the Department of Medicine, and eventually the hospital's chief academic officer in 2002, overseeing research and educational affairs.

At Harvard Medical School, he became the George C. Reisman Professor of Medicine, and Harvard faculty dean for Academic Affairs at what became the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

At BIDMC he served as a Chief Academic Officer from 2002 to 2007.

In 2005, he reported the possible role of adult hypothalamic neurogenesis in the control of energy balance; Regarding inflammatory phenomena in metabolic disease, Flier helped establish that Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) activation in adipocytes and macrophages mediates inflammation accompanying obesity, and subsequent insulin resistance in diabetes.

He was the 21st Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard University from 2007 to 2016.

Flier was born in New York City, and grew up in the Pelham Parkway section of the Bronx.

He is the son of Milton R. Flier, a World War II C-47 pilot and businessperson, and Dorothy (Kroll) Flier, who taught junior high school mathematics.

Flier was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and the Caroline Shields Walker professor of medicine at Harvard in July 2007 by President Drew Faust and assumed the position on September 1, 2007.

During his first year as dean, he led an extensive strategic planning process, releasing a report in October 2008.

Harvard University and Harvard Medical School suffered financial losses when financial markets fell in 2008–2009.

This slowed but did not stop investments in several areas.

His term as dean of Harvard Medical School ended in 2016 after nine years.

Some of the corporate accomplishments corresponding to his period as a Dean were: 1.

implementation of a new Clinical and Translational Science Award from NIH; 2.

successful launch and oversight of the $750 million “The World is Waiting” capital campaign; 3.

implementation of a major redesign of the preclinical medical curriculum; 4.

design and implementation of a new system for financial contributions to HMS from its affiliated institutions; 5.

establishment of a new department of biomedical informatics; 6.

establishment of a new division of external education, combining Harvard Health Publishing, postgraduate medical education, and new HMS online learning and executive education programs designed to increase the global impact and educational revenues of the institution.

Flier's 2016 final class commencement speech at Harvard Medical School is available online.

While at the Diabetes Branch of NIH, under the mentorship of Jesse Roth, Philip Gorden, and C. Ronald Kahn, Flier discovered the existence of autoantibodies to the insulin receptor as a cause of severe insulin resistance.

This discovery elucidated a rare cause of diabetes, advanced the field of membrane receptor biology and provided an important tool for research on insulin action.

Flier also played a major role in defining genetic causes of insulin resistance by identifying and characterizing mutations in the insulin receptor gene in a subset of patients with severe insulin resistance.