Howard Franklin Bunn

H. Franklin Bunn MD completed a medical residency at New York Hospital and fellowship at the Thorndike Laboratory, Harvard Medical School.  He has been chief of the Hematology Division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Dr. Bunn’s research on hemoglobin includes demonstration of the structure and biosynthesis of Hb A1c a test commonly used to monitor long-term control in diabetics.  His studies on erythropoietin (Epo) include identification of sites on the molecule responsible for receptor binding and delineation of the mechanism responsible for the hypoxic induction of the Epo gene.  More recently his lab cloned and characterized a novel flavo-heme fusion protein that plays a critical role in glucose homeostasis and fatty acid desaturation.

In 2014 Dr. Bunn spent the month of March at Mulago Hospital in Kampala, Uganda, making morning rounds on adult and pediatric in-patients, giving lectures to house staff and medical students and visiting the hospital’s sickle cell clinic, hematology lab and blood bank.

Dr. Bunn directed the Harvard-Markey Program in Biomedical Sciences that gives graduate students training in the pathophysiology of disease.  He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and the Association of American Physicians.  He was President of the American Society of Hematology (1992-93) and recipient of their Stratton Medal and Coulter Award for lifetime achievement in hematology.  In 2013 he received a Special Faculty Prize for Sustained Excellence in Teaching at Harvard Medical School.