Professor of Biology Philip A. Rea has been reappointed as the Rebecka and Arie Belldegrun Distinguished Director of the Vagelos Program in Life Sciences & Management until 2029, a position he has held since 2011. Together with Dr. Mark V. Pauly, he founded the Roy and Diana Vagelos Life Sciences & Management Program in 2005, which he continues to co-direct. Dr. Rea received his D.Phil. in Plant Biochemistry from the University of Oxford, conducting postdoctoral research there, as well as at McGill University and the University of York. Shortly before joining Penn’s faculty, he was a Group Leader in the Department of Biochemistry, Rothamsted Research (formerly known as the Institute of Arable Crops Research).
Dr. Rea’s primary research has been directed toward understanding a broad range of transport and related phenomena with special emphasis on alternate energy sources and cellular detoxification processes. He and his group have made major contributions toward understanding a remarkably broad range of biological transport and related phenomena through their foundational investigations of vacuolar proton pumps, plant and yeast ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters, and the enzymological basis of heavy metal detoxification.
Dr. Rea's current secondary research at the interface of life sciences and their implementation focuses on case studies that highlight the difficult transition from discovery in the laboratory to success in the market and/or toward the expansion of humanitarian efforts. An extension of these research activities is the book Managing Discovery in the Life Sciences. Harnessing Creativity to Drive Biomedical Innovation (2018), Cambridge University Press). In this book, Dr. Rea co-authored with his colleagues Mark V. Pauly and Lawton R. Burns, case studies of biomedical innovations are presented whereby the reader comes to better understand how the science actually played out through the interplay of personalities and cultures within and between academic and corporate entities and the significance of serendipity not as a mysterious phenomenon but one that is intrinsic to the successes and failures of the experimental approach.
Dr. Rea, who has published more than 100 papers and co-authored two books, was awarded the President's Medal of the Society for Experimental Biology, UK for his pioneering investigations of plant membrane transporters, has been a corecipient of the National Academies Cozzarelli Prize for the publication of a paper of outstanding scientific excellence and originality, and is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for outstanding fundamental research discoveries on the membrane transport and detoxification of xenobiotics, and for distinguished accomplishments and creativity in science education. He is a National Academies Education Fellow in the Life Sciences whose teaching has been recognized by the Ira H. Abrams Memorial Award for Distinguished Teaching, the College of Arts and Sciences’ highest teaching honor, the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching, the University's highest teaching honor, the Wharton Teaching Excellence Award, and four times by the Department of Biology’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. In recognition of his seminal biochemical research, and dedication and devotion to teaching, science-communication, and mentorship, Dr. Rea was awarded a higher doctorate, Doctorate of Science (D.Sc.), by his alma mater the University of Oxford.
The directorship was established by Rebecka and Arie Belldegrun to support the Penn Arts & Sciences co-director of the Roy and Diana Vagelos Program in Life Sciences and Management. Arie and Rebecka both have served on the University’s Parent Leadership Committee and the Vagelos Program in Life Sciences and Management Advisory Board.