The Wiley Foundation, part of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (NYSE: JWa and
JWb) today announced the 16th annual Wiley
Prize in Biomedical Sciences will be awarded to Joachim
Frank, Richard Henderson, and Marin van Heel for pioneering
developments in electron microscopy that are transforming structural
studies of biological molecules and their complexes.
Dr. Joachim Frank is an HHMI investigator, a Professor of
Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and of Biological Sciences at
Columbia University, and Distinguished Professor of the State University
of New York at Albany.
Dr. Richard Henderson is a scientist at the MRC Laboratory of
Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. He was Director from 1996 to 2006,
and is a fellow of the Royal Society and a Foreign Associate of the US
National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Marin van Heel is a visiting Professor at the National
Nanotechnology Laboratory – LNNano/CNPEM, Campinas, Brazil. He is an
Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Biology Leiden (NeCEN) and the
Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London.
“The 2017 Wiley Prize honors scientists who have developed cryo-electron
microscopy to be the most important new tool for establishing atomic
structures of large molecular complexes," said Dr. Günter Blobel,
Chairman of the awards jury for the Wiley Prize.
First awarded in 2002, The Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences is
presented annually to recognize contributions that have opened new
fields of research or have advanced concepts in a particular biomedical
discipline. Among the many distinguished recipients of the Wiley Prize
in Biomedical Sciences, six have gone on to be awarded the Nobel
Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
“The Wiley Foundation honors leadership and innovation in the
development of techniques that greatly advance scientific discovery. The
work of the 2017 Wiley Prize recipients Joachim Frank, Richard
Henderson, and Marin van Heel truly upholds this mission,” said Deborah
E. Wiley, Chair of the Wiley
Foundation. “We are pleased to highlight the impact that
cryo-electron microscopy has had in advancing knowledge of molecular
structure and resulting cellular functions.”
This year’s award of $50,000 will be presented to the winners on April
7, 2017 at the Wiley Prize luncheon at The Rockefeller University. The
winners will then deliver an honorary lecture as part of The
Rockefeller University Lecture Series. This event will be live
streamed via the Current
Protocols’ Webinar Series and registration
is free.
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Full biographies of Wiley 2017 Prize Winners
Dr. Joachim Frank is an HHMI investigator, a Professor of Biochemistry
and Molecular Biophysics and of Biological Sciences at Columbia
University, and Distinguished Professor of the State University of New
York at Albany. He is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, and
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Biophysical Society.
In 2014 he received the Franklin Medal in Life Science, bestowed by the
Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.
Dr. Richard Henderson is a scientist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular
Biology in Cambridge, UK. He was Director from 1996 to 2006, and is a
fellow of the Royal Society and a Foreign Associate of the US National
Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Marin van Heel is a visiting Professor at the National
Nanotechnology Laboratory – LNNano/CNPEM, Campinas, Brazil. He is an
Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Biology Leiden (NeCEN) and the
Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London. After studying
theoretical optics at the University of Groningen, his PhD thesis marked
the beginning of a career in methodology development in structural
biology by cryo-EM. He received the Ernst Ruska Prize 1987.
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