He received a BA from University of Chicago in 1976 and during 1976–77 he was a Rhodes Scholar at New College, Oxford.
[1] Mostov received a PhD in Biological Science from the Rockefeller University in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Günter Blobel in 1983, and an MD from Weill Cornell Medicine in 1984.
In 1989, Mostov joined the faculty of the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, where he is currently Professor.
[3] Mostov and colleagues discovered and sequenced the Polymeric Immunoglobulin Receptor (pIgR) and proposed the generally accepted model of its pathway and function.
[4] Neil E. Simister and Mostov cloned and sequenced the Neonatal Fc Receptor (FcRn).