Stephen Elledge, the Gregor Mendel Professor of Genetics and of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, has been awarded the 14th annual Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences for his work with Evelyn Witkin on their research of the DNA damage response. Their studies have revealed that all living cells have a pathway that detects damaged genetic material and sends a signal for the cell to repair this damage.
“Stephen Elledge discovered a parallel system operating in eukaryotes that senses DNA damage and DNA replication blocks and relays this information throughout the cell, profoundly altering cellular physiology to promote DNA repair, genome stability and organismal survival,” said Dr. Gunter Blobel, chairman of the awards jury for the Wiley Prize.
The discovery of the signal transduction pathway has led to a new way of thinking about DNA damage and to a better understanding of how cancer occurs, as well as different ways of potentially treating it.
A Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, Elledge is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Institute of Medicine. He has received numerous honors and awards, including the Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research, the Genetics Society of America Medal, the G.H.A. Clowes Memorial Award from the American Association for Cancer Research and the Dickson Prize in Medicine.
Elledge will share the $35,000 Wiley Prize with Evelyn Witkin, Professor Emerita at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
The Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences is awarded annually by the Wiley Foundation to recognize breakthrough contributions to the biomedical sciences that are distinguished by their excellence and their impact on research and clinical applications.
