Nobel Honors March of Dimes Prize Recipients WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., OCTOBER 7, 2002 – The March of Dimes today congratulates two recent recipients of the March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology, Sydney Brenner, D.Phil., FRS, and H. Robert Horvitz, Ph.D., for receiving this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Drs. Brenner and Horvitz share the Nobel with John E. Sulston, Ph.D., for their discoveries on genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death.
Dr. Brenner, of the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, California, received the 2002 March of Dimes Prize (with Seymour Benzer) for his pioneering work with the worm C. elegans, which established it as a powerful model system that made it possible to learn how genes control development.
Dr. Horvitz, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, received the March of Dimes Prize in 2000 for using C. elegans to investigate and find genes that control programmed cell death or apoptosis -- the orderly death of cells that are harmful or simply not needed by the body.
Programmed cell death is one of the more exciting new fields of medical research, as physicians and scientists seek to control the process in humans with the hope of treating genetic birth defects, cancer, heart disease, neurodegenerative diseases, spinal cord injury, and other disorders. Clinical trials and pre-trials of new agents that either stimulate or prevent apoptosis are underway at the National Cancer Institute and a number of other institutions across the country.
“We are very gratified that this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded for research of direct relevance to birth defects,” says Michael Katz, M.D., senior vice president for research and global programs at the March of Dimes. “We’re also pleased that two of this year’s Nobel laureates are former recipients of the March of Dimes Prize, and we congratulate them.”
“The death of cells was once thought to be chaotic and random,” Dr. Katz says. “But, thanks to the work of Dr. Brenner and Dr. Horvitz, we now understand that apoptosis is a genetically-controlled and orderly process that is vitally important to normal embryonic development and also necessary in childhood and adult life.”
For example, the formation of fingers and toes in the fetus requires the removal by apoptosis of the vestigial webbing between them, and the construction of proper connections (synapses) between neurons in the brain requires that surplus cells be eliminated by apoptosis. Apoptosis can eliminate cancer cells, cells with DNA damage, or cells infected with viruses.
The March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology is a cash award of $250,000 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 Prize has been awarded annually since 1996 to investigators whose research has profoundly advanced the science that underlies the understanding of birth defects.
Dr. Brenner has been a key figure in many of the major developments in biology in the past 50 years. In the 1950s, he helped establish the existence of messenger RNA, the “working tape” copy of DNA from which cells make proteins. Currently, he is part of a team studying vertebrate genome evolution, using the Japanese puffer fish (fugu) as a model system. His autobiography, My Life in Science, was published in 2001.
Dr. Horvitz, a professor in the Department of Biology at MIT and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, is known internationally as an expert on the genetic analysis of animal development.
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. For more information, visit the March of Dimes Web site at www.marchofdimes.com, its Spanish Web site at www.nacersano.org, or call 1-888-MODIMES. For more information on the annual March of Dimes WalkAmerica, visit the Web site at www.walkamerica.org.
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