Contact: Michele Kling, March of Dimes national office, (914) 997-4613
MARCH OF DIMES AWARDS $250,000 PRIZE TO PIONEERS IN GENETIC RESEARCH
BALTIMORE, MAY 6, 2002 -- Two bold and imaginative scientists who pioneered the fields of molecular biology and genetics will receive this year's March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology here today.
Seymour Benzer, Ph.D., Boswell Professor of Neurosciences Emeritus at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and Sydney Brenner, D.Phil., F.R.S., Distinguished Professor at The Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, are being honored for research that addressed many of the mysteries of human biology and contributed to the design of new treatments for birth defects and other disorders.
The Prize is a cash award of $250,000 (to be shared equally between the two co-recipients) and a silver medal in the design of the Roosevelt dime, in honor of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who founded the March of Dimes. The cash award was raised this year from its previous $100,000.
Dr. Jennifer L. Howse, president of the March of Dimes, said Dr. Benzer and Dr. Brenner were being honored by the March of Dimes for their own discoveries and for their enormous influence on other scientists. "Dr. Benzer and Dr. Brenner entered the modern fields of genetics and molecular biology when they were new, and they played a tremendously important role in guiding other scientists to further breakthroughs," she said.
Dr. Benzer has made many highly original contributions to developmental biology using the fruitfly as a model organism. His work has revealed basic genetic mechanisms regulating the early steps of eye formation, circadian rhythm or "biological clock," as well as the first known genes that control behavior, memory, and learning. He is the subject of the book Time, Love, Memory: A Great Biologist and His Quest for the Origins of Behavior (Knopf, 1999).
In the 1950s, Dr. Brenner helped establish the existence of messenger RNA, the "working tape" copy of DNA from which cells make proteins. His pioneering work with the worm Caenorhabditis elegans in the 1960s established it as a powerful model system that made it possible to learn how genes control development, including the process of programmed cell death (apoptosis), and the assembly of cells into complex structures. Most recently, he has been studying vertebrate genome evolution, using the Japanese puffer fish (fugu). His autobiography, My Life in Science, was published last year (BioMed Central, 2001).
The March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology is awarded annually to investigators whose research has profoundly advanced the science that underlies the understanding of birth defects. The March of Dimes created the Prize as a tribute to Dr. Jonas Salk shortly before his death in 1995.
The Prize will be awarded tonight to Dr. Benzer and Dr. Brenner at a black tie dinner and ceremony beginning at 6:30 p.m. at the Harbor Court Hotel. Greg Gumbel, host and play-by-play announcer for CBS Sports, and a member of the March of Dimes National Board of Trustees, will serve as the host of the ceremony.
Dr. Benzer and Dr. Brenner also will deliver the seventh annual March of Dimes Prize Lectures today beginning at 12:30 p.m. in Ballroom 3 of the Baltimore Convention Center during the 2002 Annual Meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies.
The March of Dimes is a national voluntary health agency whose mission is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects and infant mortality. Founded in 1938, the March of Dimes funds programs of research, community services, education, and advocacy to save babies. More information is available on the March of Dimes Website at www.modimes.org, or on its Spanish Website at www.nacersano.org, or by calling toll-free 1-888-MODIMES.
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