Stephen Elledge, the Gregor Mendel Professor of Genetics and of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is one of five recipients of the 2013 Canada Gairdner International Awards. Each recipient will receive a $100,000 prize and join an elite group of winners.
Elledge’s work has led to the identification and characterization of a signal transduction pathway known as the DNA damage response. When the DNA is impaired, this pathway senses the problem and sends a signal to the cell so it can begin to repair itself. This means that the pathway has the ability to keep the genome stable and thereby suppress tumor development. 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.
“Steve is an outstanding scientist, and this honor is richly deserved," said Jeffrey S. Flier, dean of Harvard Medical School. “His discoveries regarding the DNA damage response are fundamental to modern genetics and have substantial implications for disease and therapeutics, including cancer.”
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.
Other recipients of the 2013 Gairdner International Awards include:
- Harvey J. Alter, distinguished NIH investigator and associate director for research, Department of Transfusion Medicine, National Institutes of Health
- Daniel W. Bradley, consultant, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Michael Houghton, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Virology and professor, Department of Medical Microbiology & Immunology, University of Alberta, Canada
- Sir Gregory Winter, former deputy director, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Medical Research Council; master, Trinity College, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
The Canada Gairdner Awards will be presented at a dinner in Toronto on Oct. 24, 2013, as part of the Gairdner National Program, a month-long lecture series given by Canada Gairdner Award winners at 21 universities from St. John's to Vancouver.
