Jack William Szostak was born on November 9, 1952, in London, United Kingdom, and is of Polish and British descent. He was raised in Montreal and Ottawa, Canada. Despite his Polish heritage, Szostak does not speak Polish. He attended Riverdale High School in Quebec.
Remarkably, Szostak graduated from high school at the age of fifteen, earning the school's Scholar's Prize. He then enrolled at McGill University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in cell biology at the age of 19. During his undergraduate years, he also participated in The Jackson Laboratory's Summer Student Program in the 1970s, conducting research under the guidance of Dr. Chen K. Chai. He later pursued doctoral studies at Cornell University and earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry.
Following his Ph.D., Szostak moved to Boston and established his own laboratory at the Sidney Farber Cancer Institute, affiliated with Harvard Medical School. This opportunity was made possible in part through the support of geneticist Ruth Sager, despite his limited body of published work at the time. In 1984, molecular biologist Howard Goodman recruited him to join the Department of Molecular Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).
After years of dedicated research, Szostak was granted tenure in 1988 and became a full professor at Harvard Medical School. He later assumed the position of Alexander Rich Distinguished Investigator at MGH, where he made significant advances in the field of genetics, contributing to foundational knowledge that supported projects like the Human Genome Project.
| Net Worth 2021: | 4 million |
