The Excellence in Science Award was established by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) in 1989 to recognize outstanding achievement by women in biological science. All women who are members of one or more of the societies of FASEB are eligible for nomination. Nominations recognize a woman whose career achievements have contributed significantly to further our understanding of a particular discipline by excellence in research. [1]
The award includes a $10,000 unrestricted research grant, funded by Eli Lilly and Company.
Source: FASEB
Bonnie Lynn Bassler is an American molecular biologist; the Squibb Professor in Molecular Biology and chair of the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University; and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. She has researched cell-to-cell chemical communication in bacteria and discovered key insights into the mechanism by which bacteria communicate, known as quorum sensing. She has contributed to the idea that disruption of chemical signaling can be used as an antimicrobial therapy.
Susan Lee Lindquist, ForMemRS was an American professor of biology at MIT specializing in molecular biology, particularly the protein folding problem within a family of molecules known as heat-shock proteins, and prions. Lindquist was a member and former director of the Whitehead Institute and was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2010.
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.
The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), based in Rockville, Maryland, is a non-profit organization of scientific societies in the United States. With a focus on the biological and biomedical sciences, the federation represents scientists in such fields as anatomy, physiology, immunology, biochemistry, molecular biology, toxicology, genetics, and nutrition.
The American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI), established in 1908, is one of the oldest and most respected medical honor societies in the United States.
The American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) is a scientific society founded in late 1908 by John Jacob Abel of Johns Hopkins University, with the aim of promoting the growth of pharmacological research. Many society members are researchers in basic and clinical pharmacology who help develop disease-fighting medications and therapeutics. ASPET is one of the constituent societies of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). The society's headquarters are in Rockville, MD. The current president is Michael F. Jarvis.
The Genetics Society of America (GSA) is a scholarly membership society of more than 5,500 genetics researchers and educators, established in 1931. The Society was formed from the reorganization of the Joint Genetics Sections of the American Society of Zoologists and the Botanical Society of America.
Aviv Regev is a computational biologist and systems biologist and Executive Vice President and Head of Genentech Research and Early Development in Genentech/Roche. She is a core member at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and professor at the Department of Biology of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Regev is a pioneer of single cell genomics and of computational and systems biology of gene regulatory circuits. She founded and leads the Human Cell Atlas project, together with Sarah Teichmann.
Lynne Elizabeth Maquat is an American biochemist and molecular biologist whose research focuses on the cellular mechanisms of human disease. She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine. She currently holds the J. Lowell Orbison Endowed Chair and is a professor of biochemistry and biophysics, pediatrics and of oncology at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Professor Maquat is also Founding Director of the Center for RNA Biology and Founding Chair of Graduate Women in Science at the University of Rochester.
Yoke Peng Loh is an American biochemist and molecular biologist currently acting as Senior Investigator and Head at the Section on Cellular Neurobiology, Laboratory of Developmental Neurobiology, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), National Institutes of Health (NIH). She earned a B.S. in biochemistry at University College Dublin in 1969 and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1973. She did her postdoctoral work with Harold Gainer at NIH and at the Max Planck Institute in Germany.
Zena Werb was a professor and the Vice Chair of Anatomy at the University of California, San Francisco. She was also the co-leader of the Cancer, Immunity, and Microenvironment Program at the Hellen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and a member of the Executive Committee of the Sabre-Sandler Asthma Basic Research Center at UCSF. Her research focused on features of the microenvironment surrounding cells, with particular interest in the extracellular matrix and the role of its protease enzymes in cell signaling.
Yan Ning is a Chinese structural biologist and the founding dean of the Shenzhen Medical Academy of Research and Translation. She previously served as the Shirley M. Tilghman Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton University where her laboratory studied the structural and chemical basis for membrane transport and lipid metabolism.
Terry L. Orr-Weaver is an American molecular biologist in the MIT Department of Biology with a joint appointment to the Whitehead Institute. She does research on developmental biology, with a focus on "[c]oordination of cell growth and division with development, with particular focus on the oocyte-to-embryo transition, control of cell size, and regulation of metazoan DNA replication." Orr-Weaver and her collaborators have identified two proteins necessary for the proper sorting of chromosomes during meiosis with implications for cancer and birth defects. In 2006 she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Professor Jonathan Sprent,, is an Australian immunologist. His research has focused on the formation and activation of T cell leukocytes, and methods to overcome T cell-mediated rejection of transplanted tissue.
The American Association of Immunologists Lifetime Achievement Award is the highest honor bestowed by the American Association of Immunologists (AAI). It has been awarded annually to a single AAI member since 1994.
The International Cytokine & Interferon Society (ICIS) is a non-profit organization composed of researchers of cytokines, interferons and chemokine cell biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, and the use of biological response modifiers clinically. As the premier organization in the field of cytokine biology, it has more than 950 member scientists. Katherine A. Fitzgerald is the current president of the society.
M. Madan Babu is an Indian-American computational biologist and bioinformatician. He is the endowed chair in biological data science and director of the center of excellence for data-driven discovery at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Previously, he served as a programme leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB).
Catherine E. Costello is the William Fairfield Warren distinguished professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Cell Biology and Genomics, and the director of the Center for Biomedical Mass Spectrometry at the Boston University School of Medicine.
Sara Elaine Brownell is an American biology education researcher who is a professor at Arizona State University. Her research looks to make undergraduate science teaching more inclusive. She was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2022.