The Royal Society of Canada, also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities, and Sciences of Canada, is the senior national, bilingual council of distinguished Canadian scholars, humanists, scientists, and artists. The primary objective of the RSC is to promote learning and research in the arts, the humanities, and the sciences. The RSC is Canada's national academy. It promotes Canadian research and scholarly accomplishment in both official languages, recognizes academic and artistic excellence, and advises governments, non-governmental organizations, and Canadians on matters of public interest.
Rosalyn Sussman Yalow was an American medical physicist, and a co-winner of the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for development of the radioimmunoassay technique. She was the second woman, and the first American-born woman, to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology (SSB) was a science award in India given annually by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for notable and outstanding research, applied or fundamental, in biology, chemistry, environmental science, engineering, mathematics, medicine, and physics. The prize recognized outstanding Indian work in science and technology. It was the highest, most prestigious and coveted prize given in the area of multidisciplinary science in India. The award was named after the founder Director of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar. It was first awarded in 1958.
The Canada Gairdner International Award is given annually by the Gairdner Foundation at a special dinner to five individuals for outstanding discoveries or contributions to medical science. Receipt of the Gairdner is traditionally considered a precursor to winning the Nobel Prize in Medicine; as of 2020, 98 Nobel Prizes have been awarded to prior Gairdner recipients.
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research is a federal agency responsible for funding health and medical research in Canada. Comprising 13 institutes, it is the successor to the Medical Research Council of Canada.
Joan Elaine Argetsinger Steitz is Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University and Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She is known for her discoveries involving RNA, including ground-breaking insights into how ribosomes interact with messenger RNA by complementary base pairing and that introns are spliced by small nuclear ribonucleic proteins (snRNPs), which occur in eukaryotes. In September 2018, Steitz won the Lasker-Koshland Award for Special Achievement in Medical Science. The Lasker award is often referred to as the 'American Nobel' because 87 of the former recipients have gone on to win Nobel prizes.
Robert Joseph Lefkowitz is an American physician and biochemist. He is best known for his discoveries that reveal the inner workings of an important family of G protein-coupled receptors, for which he was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Brian Kobilka. He is currently an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as well as a James B. Duke Professor of Medicine and Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry at Duke University.
Osamu Hayaishi MJA, was a Japanese biochemist, physiologist, and military physician. He discovered Oxygenases at the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases, National Institutes of Health in 1955.
Sir Brian Mellor Greenwood is a British physician, biomedical research scientist, academic, and recipient of the first Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize.
Shizuo Akira is a professor at the Department of Host Defense, Osaka University, Japan. He has made ground-breaking discoveries in the field of immunology, most significantly in the area of innate host defense mechanisms.
Sir John Irving Bell is a Canadian-British immunologist and geneticist. From 2006 to 2011, he was President of the United Kingdom's Academy of Medical Sciences, and since 2002 he has held the Regius Chair of Medicine at the University of Oxford. He was since 2006 Chairman of the Office for Strategic Coordination of Health Research (OSCHR) but in 2020 became a normal member. Bell was selected to the Vaccine Taskforce sometime before 1 July 2020. Bell is also on the board of directors of the SOE quango Genomics England.
Alan Bernstein is Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto and President Emeritus of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), where he served as President and CEO from 2012 to 2022. A Distinguished Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, he is also a Fellow and Member of the Standing Committee for Science Planning at the International Science Council (2022-2025). Canadian Bernstein is recognized as a leader in health research, science policy, mentorship and organizational leadership.
Michael R. Hayden, is a Killam Professor of Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia, the highest honour UBC can confer on any faculty member. Only four such awards have ever been conferred in the Faculty of Medicine. Hayden is best known for his research in Huntington disease (HD).
Bruce William Stillman is a biochemist and cancer researcher who has served as the Director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) since 1994 and President since 2003. He also served as the Director of its NCI-designated Cancer Center for 25 years from 1992 to 2016. During his leadership, CSHL has been ranked as the No. 1 institution in molecular biology and genetics research by Thomson Reuters. Stillman's research focuses on how chromosomes are duplicated in human cells and in yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae; the mechanisms that ensure accurate inheritance of genetic material from one generation to the next; and how missteps in this process lead to cancer. For his accomplishments, Stillman has received numerous awards, including the Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. Prize in 2004 and the 2010 Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize, both of which he shared with Thomas J. Kelly of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, as well as the 2019 Canada Gairdner International Award for biomedical research, which he shared with John Diffley.
Malini Olivo is the Distinguished A*STAR Fellow and Distinguished Principal Scientist of A*STAR Skin Research Labs (A*SRL) where she leads the Translational Biophotonics Laboratory. Concurrently, she is also an adjunct professor at the Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, National University Health System, NUS, Singapore; LKC School of Medicine, NTU, Singapore; and Royal College of Surgeons Ireland, Dublin, Ireland. In 2015, she was elected by the Optical Society of America for "pioneering contribution in clinical photodiagnostics in the area of clinical spectroscopy and imaging in early cancer detection and photo-therapeutics of cancer".
The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) is a not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) charitable organization established by the US Congress in 1990. Located in North Bethesda, MD, the FNIH raises private-sector funds, and creates and manages alliances with public and private institutions in support of the mission of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Simin Liu is an American physician-scientist and epidemiologist. He is recognized internationally for his leadership in the research of nutrition, genetics, epidemiology, and the environmental and biological determinants of complex diseases, particularly those related to cardiometabolic health in diverse populations. His research has pioneered novel concepts, uncovered critical mechanisms and risk factors, and developed research frameworks for diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. A hallmark of Liu's work is when his lab was among the first to define and quantify dietary glycemic load in humans, providing key insights into the functional role of dietary carbohydrates in the development of health outcomes. This novel nutritional concept has since become a cornerstone of clinical diabetes management, nutritional epidemiology, and dietary feeding trials in diverse populations worldwide.
Gagandeep Kang FRS is an Indian microbiologist and virologist who has been leading the work on enteric diseases, diarrheal infections and disease surveillance at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation since 2023.
William G. Kaelin Jr. is an American Nobel laureate physician-scientist. He is a professor of medicine at Harvard University and the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute. His laboratory studies tumor suppressor proteins. In 2016, Kaelin received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research and the AACR Princess Takamatsu Award. He also won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2019 along with Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza.
The John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award is given by the Gairdner Foundation to recognize the world's top scientists who have made outstanding achievements in Global Health Research. Since its inception, the Global Health Award has grown significantly to become one of the world's most prestigious awards recognizing excellence in global health research.
