Dr. Roland Baron received his DDS and his PhD in oral biology at the University of Paris (France). Upon receiving his degrees, Dr. Baron remained at the University of Paris, where he went on to become a member of the dental faculty. He was first appointed as an assistant professor in physiology, was soon promoted to an associate professor of physiology, and became chief of the Physiology Section. Dr. Baron has taken office as the new president of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR), the world’s leading scientific organization for bone health research. Dr. Baron will serve as President of ASBMR until October 2015.

In 1975, Dr. Baron began a long career at Yale University School of Medicine. He held several positions at Yale, beginning as an assistant professor in pathology. He soon moved to the Department of Internal Medicine and Cell Biology and climbed through the ranks to eventually become a tenured full professor. In 2008, he left Yale to become the chair of the Department of Oral Medicine, Infection, and Immunity at Harvard School of Dental Medicine. In addition to being chair, Dr. Baron is also a professor of oral medicine, infection, and immunity and a professor of internal medicine at Harvard Medical School and at the Endocrine Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Dr. Baron is the founder and current editor-in-chief of Bone, the Official Journal of the International Bone and Mineral Society. Between 1994 and 2002, he also held the position of vice president and head of the Bone Diseases Group at Hoechst Marion Roussel and then Aventis. In 2002 he founded ProSkelia, a small pharmaceutical company devoted to the discovery and development of new drugs for bone and hormonal dependent diseases. He held the positions of president and chief scientific officer of ProSkelia and then ProStrakan, a merger between ProSkelia and Strakan, until April 2006.

Dr. Baron has published more than 250 scientific papers in the field of bone cell and molecular biology. He has also received numerous awards during his career, including the Thesis Prize, Silver Medal, Laureate of Paris V University for the PhD Thesis in 1972; MERIT Award, National Institutes of Health, NIDR, NIH,  in 1993; Seymour J. Kreshover Lecture Award, NIDR, NIH, in 1997; Japan Society for the Promotion of Science travel grant in 2002; Louis V. Avioli Founders Award, American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, in 2002;  Doctor Honoris Causa, University René Descartes, Paris, France, also in 2002;  and D. Harold Copp Award in Basic Research, International Bone and Mineral Society, Geneva, Switzerland, in 2005. He was a member of the Council of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research from 1991 to 1994 and has been a member of the Board of Directors of the International Bone and Mineral Society since 1995. Dr. Baron was elected president of the European Calcified Tissue Society in 2007.

Fields of Interest

Dr. Baron is internationally known for his groundbreaking advances in bone biology. His research is the basis for the development of novel therapies to prevent bone loss such as that in arthritis and osteoporosis. The Baron Laboratory is focused on signal transduction and the ways in which it controls cell differentiation and function. For this purpose, the researchers primarily study skeletal development and remodeling as a model system.