The Wiley Foundation said this week that Rockefeller University researcher David Allis has been named the recipient of the third annual Wiley Prize in the Biomedical Sciences.
“David Allis has been selected to receive this year’s Wiley Prize in the Biomedical Sciences for his significant discovery that transcription factors can enzymatically modify histones to regulate gene activity,” Gunter Blobel, a Rockefeller researcher and chairman of the Wiley Prize awards jury, said in a statement.
According to the Wiley Foundation, Allis’ work focuses on the chemical modifications that control chromatin structure and function with an eye towards its role in cancer.
Last year’s winners of the Wiley Prize include Rockefeller’s Thomas Tuschl, Andrew Fire from the Carnegie Institute, Craig Mello from the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and David Baulcombe from the Sainsbury Laboratory at the John Innes Centre, for their work with RNA interference.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology said this week that Phillip Sharp, director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, has been named a member of the committee that will select the winner of the Edward M. Scolnick Prize.
The prize is given each year to recognize an outstanding discovery or significant advance in the field of neuroscience, said MIT. It was created in 2003 and named after the former president of Merck Research Laboratories.
The recipient(s) of the prize will present a public lecture at MIT and receive the award, equal to $50,000, at a ceremony in the spring.