The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Bruce A. Beutler, MD, and Jules A. Hoffmann, PhD, “for their discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity,” and to Ralph M. Steinman, MD, “for his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity.” Awardees are recognized for illuminating key principles for activation of the immune system. Their discoveries have paved the way for the development of prevention strategies and therapies to combat infections, cancer and inflammatory diseases.
Dr. Beutler, a former member of the AFMR and recipient of the AFMR Outstanding Investigator Award in 1994, earned his MD at the University of Chicago. He received additional medical training at the University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Center and at Rockefeller University before joining the UT Southwestern faculty in 1986. In 2000, he joined The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA, where he served until returning to UT Southwestern in September of this year as director of the Center for the Genetics of Host Defense. During his initial tenure at UT Southwestern, while serving as a faculty member and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, Dr. Beutler and his colleagues identified tumor necrosis factor (TNF) as a key mediation of inflammation.
A native of Luxembourg, Dr. Hoffmann earned his PhD at the University of Strasbourg in France, and completed postdoctoral training at the University of Marburg, Germany. He returned to Strasbourg in 1974, where he headed a research laboratory until 2009. He has also served as director of the Institute for Molecular Cell Biology in Strasbourg and as President of the French National Academy of Sciences. In 1996, Dr. Hoffmann discovered that the product of the Toll gene was involved in sensing pathogens and Toll receptor activation was needed for successful defense against them.
Dr. Steinman, a native of Canada, studied biology and chemistry at McGill University in Montreal. He earned his MD at Harvard Medical School in 1968. He completed internship and residency at Massachusetts General Hospital before joining the faculty of Rockefeller University in New York in 1970. In 1973, he and his colleague, Zanvil A. Cohn, MD, discovered the dendritic cell. He became a full professor at Rockefeller University in 1988. He was named Henry G. Kunkel Professor in 1995, and became Director of the Christopher H. Browne Center for Immunology and Immune Diseases in 1998. Dr. Steinman died of pancreatic cancer three days prior to the announcement of his Nobel Prize Award.
A summary each awardee’s scientific achievements, as well as details of the Nobel Prize, can be found online at www.nobelprize.org.
USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center Receives Core Grant Renewal
The University of Southern California (USC) Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center received a five-year, $32.5 million core grant renewal from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The award will support a variety of clinical, research and educational programs aimed at investigating the origins and progression of cancer, developing prevention strategies, and discovering effective treatments. The Center has received funding from the NCI since 1973 and is one of the original eight cancer centers among the current 40 comprehensive cancer centers in the country.
Mayo Clinic Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery Receives $20 Million Gift
Mayo Clinic received a $20 million gift from Robert and Patricia Kern to help launch its Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery. The Center, to be led by Véronique L. Roger, MD, MPH, a cardiologist and epidemiologist, and Mark Hayward, a senior administrator at Mayo Clinic, will be focused on identifying, testing, and developing models of care and most efficient best practices for diagnosis, treatment and care of patients. The center’s primary physical location will be in renovated space on Mayo Clinic’s downtown Rochester campus. Funds from the Kern family’s gift will support hiring staff and various startup costs, including those related to building space.
2011 Albert Lasker Awards Announced
The 2011 Albert Lasker Awards have been announced. Complete details of each award are available on the Lasker Foundation website at laskerfoundation.org.
Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award
Dr. Franz-Ulrich Hartl, of the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany, and Dr. Arthur Horwich, of Yale University, received the 2011 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award “for discoveries concerning the cell’s protein-folding machinery, exemplified by cage-like structures that convert newly made proteins into their biologically active forms”.
Lasker∼DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award
Dr. Tu Youyou, of the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences in Beijing, was awarded 2011 Lasker∼DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award “for the discovery of artemisinin, a drug therapy for malaria that has saved millions of lives across the globe, especially in the developing world”.
Lasker∼Bloomberg Award for Public Service
The Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health was honored with the Lasker∼Bloomberg Award for Public Service. The Center was recognized “for serving since its inception as a model research hospital — providing innovative therapy and high-quality patient care, treating rare and severe diseases, and producing outstanding physician-scientists whose collective work has set a standard of excellence in biomedical research”.
NIH Launches Medical Research Scholars Program
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has announced the Medical Research Scholars Program, a new opportunity for medical and dental students to gain research experience alongside NIH intramural investigators at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, MD. The program is a partnership with the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, supported by a grant from Pfizer Inc. and funds from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The program is scheduled to begin in September 2012 and will incorporate the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)-NIH Research Scholars Program, which has been geared toward basic science research, and the NIH Clinical Research Training Program (CRTP), which has focused on clinical and translational research.
Program applications are being accepted through mid-January 2012, and approximately 40 students are expected to be admitted during the program’s first year. In future years, the plan is to admit up to 70 students as the program grows. Students who are selected for the program will receive a stipend and resources for education enrichment. The program curriculum will include clinical protocol development, elements and ethics of the conduct of human subjects research, and seminars focused on translational protocol development.
NHGRI Announces Awards for Development of DNA Sequencing Technologies
The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), recently awarded more than $14 million in grants to develop DNA sequencing technologies that will promote feasibility of common use of DNA sequencing technologies by biomedical researchers and health care providers. The financial goal established by NHGRI is a cost of $1,000 per human genome sequence, and the new grants will fund 9 teams charged with developing technologies to meet this goal. Information pertaining to costs associated with producing a high-quality genome is available on the NHGRI website at www.genome.gov/sequencingcosts. Grant abstracts and additional information pertaining to the NHGRI genome technology program are available online at www.genome.gov/10000368#al-6.
As announced by the NHGRI, Revolutionary Genome Sequencing Technologies grant recipients and their approximate funding are:
University of California Santa Cruz
Mark A. Akeson, PhD
$3.6 million (3 years)
Optimization of processive enzymes for DNA sequencing using nanopores
Washington University in St. Louis
Wayne M. Barnes, PhD
$608,000 (2 years)
Fluorescent amino acid probe of template-strand bases
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Marija Drndic, PhD
$1.5 million (3 years)
DNA sequencing using single-layer graphene nanoribbons with nanopores
Stratos Genomics, Inc., Seattle
Mark Kokoris
$829,000 (2 years)
Sequencing by expansion
Arizona State University, Tempe
Stuart Lindsay, PhD
$4.1 million (4 years)
Instrument to optimize DNA sequencing by recognition tunneling
Electron Optica, Palo Alto, CA.
Marian Mankos
$499,000 (2 years)
DNA sequence imaging using a low energy electron microscope
University of Washington, Seattle
Jay A. Shendure, MD, PhD
$1.8 million (3 years)
Massively parallel contiguity mapping
Louisiana State University A&M College, Baton Rouge
Steven A. Soper, PhD
$616,000 (2 years)
Polymer-based modular systems with nanosensors for DNA/RNA sequencing
Arizona State University, Tempe
Bharath R. Takulapalli, PhD
$916,000 (3 years)
High speed DNA sequencing by chemical recognition using novel nanopore technology
NIDA Announces Avant-Garde Award Winners
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has announced recipients of the Avant-Garde Awards for Innovative Medication Development Research.
The awardees, who will work to develop vaccines against methamphetamine and nicotine, will each receive $500,000 per year for five years to support their research. As announced by the NIDA, the awardees and their project overviews are:
Thomas Kosten, PhD
Baylor College of Medicine
Project: Human methamphetamine vaccine
Dr. Kosten’s group will accelerate the development of a methamphetamine vaccine, which is expected to undergo initial clinical trials within the next five years. At present there is no FDA-approved medication for methamphetamine addiction, so a vaccine could have substantial impact on the treatment of methamphetamine addiction.
Peter Burkhard, PhD
University of Connecticut
Project: A peptide nanoparticle nicotine vaccine
Dr. Burkhard’s lab plans to develop and test a novel type of vaccine that induces a strong immune response against nicotine without the need of chemical enhancers, which could result in a less expensive vaccine with fewer side effects. This nicotine vaccine will be administered intranasally, which will be more convenient and less painful than an injection. The new vaccine is expected to enter initial clinical trials within the next five years.
NIH Director’s Awards Announced
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced recipients of the NIH Director’s Pioneer, New Innovator, and Transformative Research Projects Awards. The three research programs are supported by the NIH Common Fund. Of this year’s 79 awards, there are 13 Pioneer Awards, 49 New Innovator Awards, and 17 Transformative Research Projects Awards.
As announced by the NIH, 2011 awardees and their institutions are:
2011 NIH Director’s Pioneer Award Recipients
Utpal Banerjee, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
Brenda L. Bass, PhD, University of Utah, Salt Lake City
Jean Bennett, PhD, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
William M. Clemons, PhD, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Florian Engert, PhD, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
Andrew P. Feinberg, MD, MPH, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
James E.K. Hildreth, PhD, MD, University of California, Davis
Tao Pan, PhD, University of Chicago
Sharad Ramanathan, PhD, Harvard University
David S. Schneider, PhD, Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif.
Thanos Siapas, PhD, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif.
Andreas S. Tolias, PhD, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston
Mehmet Fatih Yanik, PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
2011 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award Recipients
Stephen G. Aller, PhD, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Aaron B. Baker, PhD, University of Texas at Austin
Maria Barna, PhD, University of California, San Francisco
Uttiya Basu, PhD, Columbia University, New York City
Nicolas E. Buchler, PhD, Duke University, Durham, N.C.
Long Cai, PhD, California Institute of Technology
Julie C. Canman, PhD, Columbia University
Erin E. Carlson, PhD, Indiana University at Bloomington
Edward Chang, PhD, University of California, San Francisco
John T. Chang, MD, University of California, San Diego
Michelle C. Chang, PhD, University of California, Berkeley
Wei Cheng, PhD, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Heather R. Christofk, PhD, David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles
Hunter B. Fraser, PhD, Stanford University
Charles A. Gersbach, PhD, Duke University
Aron M. Geurts, MD, PhD, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Nathan C. Gianneschi, PhD, University of California, San Diego
Lea Goentoro, PhD, California Institute of Technology
Ming C. Hammond, PhD, University of California, Berkeley
Songi Han, PhD, University of California, Santa Barbara
Bo Huang, PhD, University of California, San Francisco
Christopher Hug, MD, PhD, Children’s Hospital Boston/Harvard Medical School
Hongrui Jiang, PhD, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Sundeep Kalantry, PhD, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor
Andrea M. Kasko, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
Megan C. King, PhD, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
Steven T. Kosak, PhD, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill.
Gyanu Lamichhane, PhD, Johns Hopkins University
Seok-Yong Lee, PhD, Duke University School of Medicine
Shaun W. Lee, PhD, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Ind.
Erez Lieberman-Aiden, PhD, Harvard University/Broad Institute
Timothy Lu, MD, PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Emanual M. Maverakis, MD, University of California, Davis/VA Northern California Health Care System
Douglas A. Mitchell, PhD, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Harald C. Ott, MD, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
Timothy P. Padera, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital
Brian M. Paegel, PhD, The Scripps Research Institute, Jupiter, Fla.
Michael Petrascheck, PhD, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, Calif.
Christine Queitsch, PhD, University of Washington, Seattle
Arjun Raj, PhD, University of Pennsylvania
Christian D. Schlieker, PhD, Yale University
David M. Tobin, PhD, Duke University
C. Jason Wang, MD, PhD, Stanford University
Douglas B. Weibel, PhD, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Rebecca A. Wingert, PhD, University of Notre Dame
Joy Y. Wu, MD, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital
Joao Xavier, PhD, Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, New York City
Qi Zhang, PhD, Vanderbilt University, Nashville
Haining Zhong, PhD, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland
2011 NIH Director’s Transformative Research Projects Award Recipients
Adela Ben-Yakar, PhD and Jonathan T. Pierce-Shimomura, PhD, University of Texas at Austin
Kwabena Boahen, PhD, Stanford University
Richard A. Cerione, PhD, Hening Lin, PhD, and Robert S. Weiss, PhD, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
Fred H. Gage, PhD, The Salk Institute, La Jolla, Calif.
Thomas Hartung, MD, PhD, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore
Richard E. Honkanen, PhD, University of South Alabama School of Medicine, Mobile
Alan Jasanoff, PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Thomas S. Kupper, MD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Dana Farber Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center/Harvard Medical School, Boston
James F. Leckman, MD and Bruce E. Wexler, MD, Yale University
Jeff W. Lichtman, MD, PhD, Markus Meister, PhD, Joshua Sanes, PhD, Harvard University; and Sebastian Seung, PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Todd C. McDevitt, PhD, Georgia Institute of Technology/Emory University, Atlanta
Vamsi K. Mootha, MD, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School
Shuming Nie, PhD, Emory University/Georgia Institute of Technology and Sunil
Singhal, MD, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Jan A. Nolta, PhD, University of California, Davis
F. Nina Papavasiliou, PhD, Rockefeller University, New York City
Joseph D. Puglisi, PhD, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, Calif.
Margaret Elizabeth Ross, MD, PhD and Christopher E. Mason, PhD, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York City
CSR Launches Early Career Reviewer (ECR) Program
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Center for Scientific Review (CSR) announced that it is recruiting up-and-coming researchers into a new Early Career Reviewer (ECR) Program. According to the NIH, “eligible individuals include researchers who have an active research program, who are published in high-impact journals, and who have not reviewed for NIH in a face-to-face meeting.” Participants will gain experience with scoring applications, participating in review discussions, and writing critiques.
The focus of the program is to foster development of highly qualified and well-trained reviewers. Participants are not only in the program as trainees, but also actively contribute to current study sections and review processes. ECRs participate in an annual CSR study section meeting for up to two years, serving as the third reviewer on two NIH grant applications each time.