Dr. Auron received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Pennsylvania State University in 1980, studying prokaryotic ribosome structure and function. He then conducted postdoctoral studies at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology using chemical and enzymatic techniques in concert with computer algorithmic model building and X-ray crystal structure data to predict the structure of small (tRNA) and large (rRNA and mRNA) ribonucleic acid molecules in solution. In 1983 Dr. Auron accepted a faculty position as an Assistant Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, while maintaining a joint visiting faculty position and laboratory at MIT in the joint Harvard-MIT division of Health Sciences and Technology. It was at this time that he initiated seminal studies leading to the characterization of interleukin 1 beta and its gene structure and regulation. In 1989, Dr. Auron joined the faculty in the Department of Pathology at Harvard Medical School and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1993. Dr. Auron joined the Department of Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 2002 and accepted the chairmanship of the Department of Biological Sciences at Duquesne in 2006, a position that he held until 2010.