Paul Feinstein, PhD

Professor Paul Feinstein is a world-renowned expert in the molecular biology of smell. His record of outstanding publications in olfaction spans 4 decades, and his landmark back-to-back papers, published in 2004 in the premier scientific journal Cell, laid the foundation for our current understanding of how olfactory cells select which odorant receptors to produce, a decision that guides their development and subsequent neuronal interactions. As a principal investigator for over a decade at Hunter College, CUNY, continues to dissect how each olfactory cell chooses to produce a single type of odorant receptor — and what role the selected receptors play in this process. He is currently one of a few scientists in the world that genetically manipulates odorant receptor protein expression to gain an understanding of this odorant coding paradigm.

Professor Feinstein received his PhD in molecular biology from Columbia University and his Post-Doctoral training at The Rockefeller University.