SEATTLE — Mar. 1, 2002 — Seventeen graduate students from North America and Europe have been selected to receive the 2002 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award, sponsored by the Basic Sciences Division of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
The recipients, all advanced students at or near the completion of their studies in the biological sciences, will participate in a scientific symposium May 3-4 at the Hutchinson Center's South Lake Union campus in Seattle, Wash.
Nominations were solicited internationally; the winners were selected on the basis of the quality, originality and significance of their work.
The symposium will include scientific presentations by the awardees as well as poster presentations by Fred Hutchinson graduate students.
The award, established in 2000, honors the late Harold M. Weintraub, Ph.D., a founding member of Fred Hutchinson's Basic Sciences Division, who in 1995 died from brain cancer at age 49. Weintraub was an international leader in the field of molecular biology; among his many contributions, he identified genes responsible for instructing cells to differentiate, or develop, into specific tissues such as muscle and bone.
"Hal was one of the most outstanding scientists of his generation, as well as one of the most unpretentious. Hal had the knack of identifying the important questions in biology and designing experimental approaches that were creative, simple and elegant," says Mark Groudine, M.D., Ph.D., director of the center's Basic Sciences Division.
"By nurturing colleagues, students and postdocs, and helping all of us become better scientists, Hal was instrumental in establishing the collegial atmosphere at the Hutchinson Center. We believe having a symposium recognizing the achievements of young scientists is a great way to honor Hal and the recipients of this award," Groudine said.
The award recipients will receive a certificate, travel expenses and an honorarium from the Weintraub and Groudine Fund, established to foster intellectual exchange through the promotion of programs for graduate students, fellows and visiting scholars.
Editor's Note
A complete list of 2002 Weintraub awardees follows. To receive a faxed research summary and CV of any of the recipients, please call Kristen Woodward in Fred Hutchinson Media Relations, (206) 667-5095.
2002 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award Recipients
Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, Texas)
· Thomas E. Lloyd
M.D./Ph.D. candidate, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology
· Gregory J. McKenzie
Ph.D. candidate, Department of Molecular and Human Genetics
Columbia University (New York, N.Y.)
· Stavros Lomvardas
Ph.D. candidate, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics
· Saba Valadkhan
Ph.D. candidate, Department of Biological Sciences
Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.)
· Elissa P. Lei
Graduate student, Department of Biologial and Biomedical Sciences
· Zhaolan (Joe) Zhou, Ph.D.
Former graduate student, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology
Current postdoctoral fellow, Harvard Medical School
Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, Md.)
· Debra l. Silver
Ph.D. candidate, Department of Biological Chemistry
Karolinska Institutet (Stockholm, Sweden)
· Clas B. Johansson, D.D.S., Ph.D.
Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Medical Nobel Institute
Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute
McGill University (Montreal, Quebec, Canada)
· Anne-Claude Gingras
Ph.D. recipient, Department of Biochemistry
Current postdoctoral fellow, Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle
New York University (New York, N.Y.)
· Gil Bar-Nahum
Ph.D. candidate, Biochemistry Department, Sackler Institute of Biomedical Sciences
Princeton University (Princeton, N.J.)
· Melissa B. Miller
Ph.D. candidate, Department of Molecular Biology
Rockefeller University (New York, N.Y.)
· Agata Smogorzewska
M.D./Ph.D. candidate, Laboratory of Cell Biology and Genetics
University of California (Berkeley)
· Asa Engqvist-Goldstein
Ph.D. candidate, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology
University of California (San Francisco)
· Maxwell G. Heiman
Ph.D. candidate, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics
University of Colorado (Boulder)
· Jay Parrish
Ph.D. candidate, Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology
University of Massachusetts (Worcester)
· Alla Grishok, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral fellow, Center for Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill)
· Paul S. Maddox
Ph.D. candidate, Department of Biology
Media Contact
Kristen Woodward
(206) 667-5095
kwoodwar@fhcrc.org
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Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, home of two Nobel Prize laureates, is an independent, nonprofit research institution dedicated to the development and advancement of biomedical technology to eliminate cancer and other potentially fatal diseases. Fred Hutchinson receives more funding from the National Institutes of Health than any other independent U.S. research center. Recognized internationally for its pioneering work in bone-marrow transplantation, the center's four scientific divisions collaborate to form a unique environment for conducting basic and applied science. Fred Hutchinson, in collaboration with its clinical and research partners, the University of Washington Academic Medical Center and Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, is the only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center in the Pacific Northwest and is one of 38 nationwide. For more information, visit the center's Web site at www.fhcrc.org