Following his Ph.D., Rothman did
postdoctoral research with
Harvey Lodish at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology working on
glycosylation of
membrane proteins. He moved to the Department of Biochemistry at
Stanford University in 1978. He was at
Princeton University, from 1988 to 1991, before coming to New York to found the Department of Cellular Biochemistry and Biophysics at
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where he also served as vice-chairman of
Sloan-Kettering Institute. In 2003, he left Sloan-Kettering to become a professor of physiology at
Columbia University's
College of Physicians and Surgeons and the head of Columbia's Center for Chemical Biology. He moved from Columbia to Yale in 2008, retaining a part-time appointment at Columbia. Since 2013 he is also holding a position as Distinguished Professor-in-Residence at the Shanghai Institute for Advanced Immunochemical Studies of
ShanghaiTech University. In 1995, Rothman joined the
Amersham plc scientific advisory board. When Amersham was acquired by
GE Healthcare in 2003, Rothman was appointed as the Chief Science Advisor to GE Healthcare. Rothman's research details how vesicles—tiny sac-like structures that transport hormones, growth factors, and other molecules within cells—know how to reach their correct destination and where and when to release their contents. This cellular trafficking underlies many critical physiological functions, including the propagation of the cell itself in division, communication between nerve cells in the brain, secretion of insulin and other hormones in the body, and nutrient uptake. Defects in this process lead to a wide variety of conditions, including diabetes and
botulism. His former
postdoctoral students include
Gero Miesenböck (postdoc) and
Suzanne Pfeffer.
Awards and honors Rothman was awarded the 2010
Kavli Prize Neuroscience together with
Richard Scheller and
Thomas C. Südhof for "discovering the molecular basis of neurotransmitters release". Rothman was awarded the 2013
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine together with
Randy Schekman and
Thomas C. Südhof for "their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells." Rothman is a
Member of the National Academy of Sciences and its
Institute of Medicine. == Personal life ==