James Dewey Watson is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist. In 1953, he co-authored with Francis Crick the academic paper proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. Watson, Crick and Maurice Wilkins were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material".
Leroy "Lee" Edward Hood is an American biologist who has served on the faculties at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the University of Washington. Hood has developed ground-breaking scientific instruments which made possible major advances in the biological sciences and the medical sciences. These include the first gas phase protein sequencer (1982), for determining the sequence of amino acids in a given protein; a DNA synthesizer (1983), to synthesize short sections of DNA; a peptide synthesizer (1984), to combine amino acids into longer peptides and short proteins; the first automated DNA sequencer (1986), to identify the order of nucleotides in DNA; ink-jet oligonucleotide technology for synthesizing DNA and nanostring technology for analyzing single molecules of DNA and RNA.
Howard Robert Horvitz ForMemRS NAS AAA&S APS NAM is an American biologist best known for his research on the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, for which he was awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, together with Sydney Brenner and John E. Sulston, whose "seminal discoveries concerning the genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death" were "important for medical research and have shed new light on the pathogenesis of many diseases".
Victor Almon McKusick was an American internist and medical geneticist, and Professor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore. He was a proponent of the mapping of the human genome due to its use for studying congenital diseases. He is well known for his studies of the Amish. He was the original author and, until his death, remained chief editor of Mendelian Inheritance in Man (MIM) and its online counterpart Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM). He is widely known as the "father of medical genetics".
Daniel Nathans was an American microbiologist. He shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of restriction enzymes and their application in restriction mapping.
Joseph Leonard Goldstein ForMemRS is an American biochemist. He received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1985, along with fellow University of Texas Southwestern researcher, Michael Brown, for their studies regarding cholesterol. They discovered that human cells have low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptors that remove cholesterol from the blood and that when LDL receptors are not present in sufficient numbers, individuals develop hypercholesterolemia and become at risk for cholesterol related diseases, notably coronary heart disease. Their studies led to the development of statin drugs.
John Shine is an Australian biochemist and molecular biologist. Shine and Lynn Dalgarno discovered a nucleotide sequence, called the Shine-Dalgarno sequence, necessary for the initiation of protein synthesis. He directed the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney from 1990 to 2011. From 2018 to 2022, Shine was President of the Australian Academy of Science.
Mario Ramberg Capecchi is an Italian-born molecular geneticist and a co-awardee of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering a method to create mice in which a specific gene is turned off, known as knockout mice. He shared the prize with Martin Evans and Oliver Smithies. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics and Biology at the University of Utah School of Medicine.
Sean B. Carroll is an American evolutionary developmental biologist, author, educator and executive producer. He is a distinguished university professor at the University of Maryland and professor emeritus of molecular biology and genetics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His studies focus on the evolution of cis-regulatory elements in the regulation of gene expression in the context of biological development, using Drosophila as a model system. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, of the American Philosophical Society (2007), of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for Advancement of Science. He is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
Rudolf Jaenisch is a Professor of Biology at MIT and a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. He is a pioneer of transgenic science, in which an animal’s genetic makeup is altered. Jaenisch has focused on creating genetically modified mice to study cancer, epigenetic reprogramming and neurological diseases.
David Botstein is an American biologist serving as the chief scientific officer of Calico. He served as the director of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University from 2003 to 2013, where he remains an Anthony B. Evnin Professor of Genomics.
Blue-sensitive opsin is a protein that in humans is encoded by the OPN1SW gene.
Green-sensitive opsin is a protein that in humans is encoded by the OPN1MW gene. OPN1MW2 is a similar opsin.
OPN1LW is a gene on the X chromosome that encodes for long wave sensitive (LWS) opsin, or red cone photopigment. It is responsible for perception of visible light in the yellow-green range on the visible spectrum. The gene contains 6 exons with variability that induces shifts in the spectral range. OPN1LW is subject to homologous recombination with OPN1MW, as the two have very similar sequences. These recombinations can lead to various vision problems, such as red-green colourblindness and blue monochromacy. The protein encoded is a G-protein coupled receptor with embedded 11-cis-retinal, whose light excitation causes a cis-trans conformational change that begins the process of chemical signalling to the brain.
Cornelia Isabella "Cori" Bargmann is an American neurobiologist. She is known for her work on the genetic and neural circuit mechanisms of behavior using C. elegans, particularly the mechanisms of olfaction in the worm. She has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and had been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at UCSF and then Rockefeller University from 1995 to 2016. She was the Head of Science at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative from 2016 to 2022. In 2012 she was awarded the $1 million Kavli Prize, and in 2013 the $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.
The Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences is intended to recognize breakthrough research in pure or applied life science research that is distinguished by its excellence, originality and impact on our understanding of biological systems and processes. The award may recognize a specific contribution or series of contributions that demonstrate the nominee's significant leadership in the development of research concepts or their clinical application. Particular emphasis will be placed on research that champions novel approaches and challenges accepted thinking in the biomedical sciences.
Huda Yahya Zoghbi, born Huda El-Hibri, is a Lebanese-born American geneticist, and a professor at the Departments of Molecular and Human Genetics, Neuroscience and Neurology at the Baylor College of Medicine. She is the director of the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute. She became the editor of the Annual Review of Neuroscience as of 2018.
Stephen Joseph Elledge is an American geneticist. He is the current Gregor Mendel Professor of Genetics and of Medicine at the Department of Genetics of Harvard Medical School and in the Division of Genetics of the Brigham and Women's Hospital. His research is focused on the genetic and molecular mechanisms of eukaryotic response to DNA damage, and is known as the discoverer of the DNA damage response (DDR).
Douglas Cecil Wallace is a geneticist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Pennsylvania and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. He pioneered the use of human mitochondrial DNA as a molecular marker.
Stuart Holland Orkin is an American physician, stem cell biologist and researcher in pediatric hematology-oncology. He is the David G. Nathan Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Orkin's research has focused on the genetic basis of blood disorders. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
