The ultimate goals of Joseph Majzoub's work are to understand how various stresses affect health.

The specific aims of the Majzoub laboratory's studies are to determine the impact of corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) and vasopressin excess and deficiency on regulation of the neuroendocrine and behavioral responses to stress. The researchers seek to identify other neuropeptides related to CRH which may have similar functions. Because abnormal regulation of such neuropeptides likely contributes to disease, the molecules and their receptors are attractive targets for the development of new drugs.

Majzoub's work is also directed at determining how DNA variants in the gene for corticotropin releasing hormone affect stress and other behaviors, including appetite. He and his colleagues are currently working to define how transcriptional silencers interact with transciptional activators to regulate CRH gene expression

Joseph Majzoub received his MD from Stanford University School of Medicine. He completed an internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and a fellowship in Adult Endocrinology at Massachusetts General Hospital.

He is the recipient of several teaching awards, including the A. Clifford Barger Award for Excellence in Mentoring from Harvard Medical School and the 2002 Irving M. London Teaching Award from Harvard Medical School-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Health Sciences Technology (HST) Program.