Rate My Professor James Ferrell

James E. Ferrell is Professor of Chemical and Systems Biology and of Biochemistry at Stanford University School of Medicine. He earned a B.A. in Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics from Williams College in 1976. He completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry at Stanford University in 1984 under Wray H. Huestis, focusing on cell shape control and phosphoinositide metabolism in human erythrocytes, and received his M.D. from Stanford in 1986. Ferrell conducted postdoctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley with G. Steven Martin on tyrosine-specific protein phosphorylation in human platelets, mammalian cell lines, and Xenopus laevis oocytes, eggs, and embryos. He launched his independent career as an assistant professor in the Department of Zoology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1990. In 1992, he joined the Department of Pharmacology at Stanford University School of Medicine, which was renamed the Department of Chemical and Systems Biology; he served as its Chair from 2006 to 2011 and Associate Chair in 2011-2012. His academic appointments include Professor in Chemical and Systems Biology and Biochemistry, as well as membership in Bio-X, the Stanford Cancer Institute, and the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute.

The Ferrell lab focuses on two primary goals: understanding the regulation of mitosis and elucidating the systems-level logic of simple signaling circuits. They employ Xenopus laevis oocytes, eggs, and cell-free extracts, alongside single-cell fluorescence imaging in mammalian cell lines. Research integrates quantitative experimental approaches with computational and theoretical modeling to uncover design principles of biochemical switches, timers, and oscillators, particularly those controlling the cell cycle. Key contributions appear in highly cited publications such as 'STIM is a Ca2+ sensor essential for Ca2+-store-depletion-triggered Ca2+ influx' (Current Biology, 2005), 'Mechanisms of specificity in protein phosphorylation' (Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology, 2007), 'Ultrasensitivity in the mitogen-activated protein kinase cascade' (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1996), 'Self-perpetuating states in signal transduction: positive feedback, double-negative feedback and bistability' (Current Opinion in Cell Biology, 2002), and 'Building a cell cycle oscillator: hysteresis and bistability in the activation of Cdc2' (Nature Cell Biology, 2003). These works have advanced systems biology by demonstrating mechanisms like ultrasensitivity, bistability, and robust oscillations in cellular decision-making.