isberg received an a.b. from oberlin college (1977) and a ph.d. from harvard university (1984), performing his thesis on the mechanisms of "tn"5 transposition in michael syvanen's laboratory. he performed his post-doctoral research in stanley falkow's lab at stanford university (1984-1986), where he initiated studies of the entry of the bacterial pathogen "yersinia pseudotuberculosis" into mammalian cells. he joined tufts university's sackler school of graduate biomedical sciences in 1986 and is currently professor of molecular biology & microbiology there. he is also the co-director of the center for enteric disease in engineered tissues (cedet) and program director of molecular basis of microbial pathogenesis.