Anjon (Jon) Audhya

Anjon (Jon) Audhya, PhD, senior associate dean for basic research, biotechnology, and graduate studies, is responsible for the leadership and direct management of the areas of basic research, graduate studies, and industry relations.

He leads research program development and provides oversight of research programs, centers, and institutes in the school. He guides the school’s partnership and engagement with internal and external organizations focused on research and development, entrepreneurship and startup technologies, the biomedical workforce, and state laboratories. He also provides administrative management of the school’s facilities, research cores, and spaces and assists in leadership recruitment and retention.

As the leader of the school’s Office of Basic Research, Biotechnology and Graduate Studies, he oversees its programs and initiatives focused on mentoring and assisting faculty and students with finding research funding, applying for grants and managing grant funds, and navigating technology transfer.

Audhya leads an internationally recognized research program focused on fundamental mechanisms by which membrane proteins, lipids, and other macromolecules are transported throughout eukaryotic cells. His work uses interdisciplinary approaches and a variety of model systems to identify how biological membranes are manipulated in cells to enable organelle function and cargo transport. His investigations focus on these processes both in healthy cells and organisms and in diseases — such as cancers, neurodegenerative diseases, asthma, and diabetes — that involve dysfunction in macromolecular trafficking in cells.

He earned his bachelor’s degree from Brown University and his PhD in biomedical sciences at the University of California, San Diego. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in La Jolla.

Audhya is a professor in the Department of Biomolecular Chemistry and served as the associate dean for basic research from 2019-2021. He is principal investigator of an NIH T32 training grant that supports the Graduate Training in Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology program. He is also a standing member of the Cell Structure and Function-2 (CSF2) NIH Study Section.

Among other accolades, Audhya is the recipient of the Shaw Scientist Award, an American Cancer Society Research Scholar Award, the H. I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship, and a RIDE Scholar.