UMass Medical School researcher Victor Ambros receives Gairdner Award, Fran...(dentifying microRNAs the very short (20-...)

Date:4/15/2008

dentifying microRNAs, the very short (20-24 nucleotide-long) single-stranded RNA molecules that are understood to play a critical role in gene regulation. microRNAs were originally discovered by Ambros and his lab in 1993 in the pathways controlling embryonic development in the nematode worm C. elegans, and at first seemed related only to a specific event in the worms development, and nothing more. Some years later, however, colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital, the Whitehead Institute and the Max Planck Institute found more microRNAs, and since then, Ambros and others have identified a wide variety of genes for diverse microRNAs in animals and plants, raising new questions about gene regulation and expression. The discovery garnered the Newcomb Cleveland Prize in 2003 for the most significant paper published in the journal Science, an award given by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Others being presented with the Gairdner International Award are

• Dr. Nahum Sonenberg, PhD, Professor, Department of Biochemistry and McGill Cancer Centre, McGill University in Montreal, for his discovery of important mechanisms that control the synthesis of proteins in human cells;

• Dr. Samuel Weiss, PhD, Professor of Cell Biology and Anatomy and Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Calgary, for the discovery that the adult brain produces stem cells that can be used to re-grow damaged neural tissue;

• Professor Harald zur Hausen, DSc, MD, Professor Emeritus and recent Chair and Scientific Director of the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg, who discovered that the human papilloma virus (HPV) causes cervical cancer, a discovery that led directly to the HPV vaccine; and

• Dr. Allan Bernstein, OC, PhD, Executive Director of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise in New York.

'/>"/>

Contact: Alison Duffy alison.duffy@umassmed.edu 508-856-2000 University of Massachusetts Medical School Source:Eurekalert

0 GOOD

Page: 1 2 3
Related biology news :

1. UMass Medical School researchers receive $8.5M grant award to fight AIDS
2. Journal of Womens Health named official journal of American Medical Womens Association
3. Chloroform provides clue to 150 year old medical puzzle
4. Springer expands publishing partnership with the Biomedical Engineering Society
5. The top 5 ways medical physics has changed health care
6. Analysis calls for medical device information to better serve patients and doctors
7. 2 federal public health grants awarded to Weill Cornell Medical College
8. Stanford researchers publish review of US medical device regulation
9. Radioactive understudy may aid medical imaging, drug development
10. U. Mass Medical School and Carnegie announce licensing agreements with Oxford BioMedica
11. Medical breakthrough for organ transplants and cardiovascular diseases by Flemish researchers