In recognition of the 10th Anniversary of the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, the Honorable Shirley Ann Jackson, Ph.D., President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, presents a symposium keynote featuring Dr. Scott Friedman, '76. Scott L. Friedman graduated cum laude from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1976 with a bachelor’s degree in biology. He went on to earn his medical degree at The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 1979 and completed his Internal Medicine residency at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston in 1982. He completed a Clinical Gastroenterology Fellowship and Liver Research Fellowship at University of California, San Francisco in 1983 and 1986, respectively. Friedman was appointed assistant professor of medicine at University of California, San Francisco in 1986 and then associate professor of medicine at University of California, San Francisco in 1992. He was named professor of medicine and director of liver research at The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 1997. In 2001 he was appointed chief of the division of liver diseases at Mount Sinai Hospital. Since 2012 he has also served as the dean of therapeutic discovery at The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Friedman’s pioneering research has identified the key cell type responsible for scar production in the liver. He has held numerous national leadership positions, including president of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), and is respected as a clinician, mentor, and scientist. He has also served as a senior Fulbright Fellow at the Weizmann Institute and was on the senior advisory council for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) from 2008 to 2013. In 2003 he was awarded the International Hans Popper Prize for Liver Research. He has published more than 300 scientific articles and is one of the most-cited researchers in the history of liver disease research.