Past Laureates
We believe this is a highly collaborative process and appreciate your feedback and comments.
Massry Prize Winners ( 1996 – Present )
| Name, Position and Affiliation | Discipline | Scientific Contribution |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 Massry Prize Co-Recipients | ||
| Ryszard Kole, PhD John University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill |
Professor | “Mysteries of RNA Splicing and the Path to Treatment of Rare Inborn Disorders” |
| Stanley T. Crooke, MD, PhD Founder, CEO and Chairman of the Board, Ionis Pharmaceuticals |
“Antisense Technology: Today and Tomorrow” | |
| 2018 Massry Prize Co-Recipients | ||
| Gregg L. Semenza, MD, PhD Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology John Hopkins University School of Medicine |
Professor | “Hypoxia-Inducible Factors in Physiology and Medicine” |
| Professor Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe, FMedSci FRS Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology University of Oxford |
Distinguished Professor | “Elucidation of Cellular Oxygen Sensing Pathways—Implications for Medicine” |
| William G. Kaelin, Jr., MD Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital |
Investigator | “von Hippel—Lindau Disease: Insights into Oxygen Sensing and Cancer” |
| 2017 Massry Prize Co-Recipients – Discovery of the microbiomes | ||
| Norman R. Pace, PhD Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology University of Colorado |
Distinguished Professor | “Into the Natural Microbial World” |
| Rob Knight, PhD Departments of Pediatrics and Computer Science & Engineering University of California, San Diego |
Professor | Tools to Link the Human and Environmental Microbiome for Health |
| Jeffrey I. Gordon, MD Director, Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology |
Dr. Robert J. Glaser Distinguished University Professor | The Gut Microbiota and Childhood Undernutrition: Looking at Human Development from a Microbial Perspective |
| 2016 Massry Prize Co-Recipients – Optogenetics | ||
| Gero Miesenböck, MD Department of Physiology Director Center for Neural Circuits & Behavior Oxford, United Kingdom |
Waynflete Professor | Lighting Up the Brain |
| Peter Hegemann, PhD Department of Experimental Physics Humboldt University Berlin, Germany |
Professor | The Cunning of Uncertainty |
| Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD Department of Bioengineering and of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences Stanford University Howard Hughes Medical Institute |
D.H. Chen Professor | Integrated brainwide structural and functional analysis |
| 2015 Massry Prize Co-Recipients – CRISPR-Cas9 | ||
| Philippe Horvath, PhD DuPont Nutrition and Health France |
Senior Scientist | Discovery of CRISPR-Cas, the bacterial immune system: from fundamental research to industrial applications |
| Emmanuelle Charpentier, PhD Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology Berlin, Germany |
Scientific Member and Director | The CRISPR-Cas9 revolution in genome engineering: lessons learned from bacteria |
| Jennifer Doudna, PhD Molecular & Cell Biology and Chemistry Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator University of California, Berkeley |
Professor | The CRISPR-Cas9 Genome Engineering Revolution |
| 2014 Massry Prize Co-Recipients – Immunotherapies for Cancer Patients | ||
| Steven A. Rosenberg, MD, PhD Chief of Surgery, National Cancer Institute |
Surgery | The Curative Potential of T Cell Transfer Therapy for Human Cancer |
| Zelig Eshhar, PhD Professor of Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel |
Immunology | Chimeric Antigen Receptor for Adoptive T cell Therapy of Cancer: Emergence of the CAR Strategy |
| James P. Allison, PhD Professor and Chair, Department of Immunology University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center |
Immunology | Targeting Immune Checkpoints in Cancer Therapy |
| 2013 Massry Prize Co-Recipients – Molecular Mechanisms of Intracellular Motility | ||
| Michael Sheetz, Ph.D Director, Mechanobiology Institute, National University of Singapore; William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Biological Sciences, Columbia University |
Cell Biology, Bioengineering | Mechanosensing by Controlled Myosin Contractions |
| James A. Spudich, Ph.D Douglass M. and Nola Leishman Professor of Cardiovascular Disease Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University |
Biochemistry | The Myosin Family of Molecular Motors: Nature’s Exquisite Nanomachines |
| Ronald D. Vale, Ph.D Professor of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, University of California, San Francisco; Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute |
Biology, Chemistry | Mechanisms of Microtubule-Based Motors |
| 2012 Massry Prize Co-Recipients – Genetics of Circadian Rythms | ||
| Jeffrey C. Hall, Ph.D Professor Emeritus of Biology – Brandeis University |
Molecular Neuorgenetics | Genetics of Drosphila, function of the nervous system; molecular neurogenetics of courtship and molecular neurogenetics of biological rhythms |
| Michael Rosbash, Ph.D Professor of Biology and HHMI Investigator – Brandeis University |
Behavioral Genomics | RNA processing and the genes and mechanisms that underlie circadian rhythms |
| Michael W. Young, Ph.D Richard and Jeanne Fisher Professor Head, Laboratory of Genetics Vice President for Academic Affairs – The Rockefeller University |
Genetics | Genetics of Sleep and the Circadian Rhythms; Cloed the clock gene period |
| 2011 Massry Prize Co-Recipients – Protein Folding | ||
| F. Ulrich Hartl, M.D. Professor of Cellular Bio Chemistry – Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry |
Cell Biology | Chaperone-assisted protein folding |
| Arthur Horwich, M.D Sterling Professor of Genetics – Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Yale University |
Genetics | Chaperonin-mediated protein folding |
| 2010 Massry Prize Co-Recipients – Membrane Fusion | ||
| James E. Rothman, Ph.D. (*) Fergus F. Wallace Professor of Biomedical Sciences; Chair, Department of Cell Biology – Yale University(*) 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (with Randy Schekman and Thomas Sudhof) |
Cell Biology | Membrane fusion |
| Randy Schekman, Ph.D. (*) Professor and Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute – Univeristy of California, Berkeley(*) 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (with James Rothman and Thomas Sudhof) |
Molecular and Cell Biology | Cellular memranes |
| 2009 Massry Prize Co-Recipients – MicroRNA | ||
| Gary Ruvkun, Ph.D. Professor of Genetics – Simches Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School |
Molecular Genetics | Co-discovery of microRNA |
| Victor Ambros, Ph.D. Silverman Professor of Natural Sciences, Program in Molecular Medicine – University of Massachusetts Medical School |
Molecular Genetics | Co-discovery of microRNA |
| 2008 Massry Prize Co-Recipients – Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells | ||
| Shinya Yamanaka, Ph.D. (*) Professor & Director, Center for iPS Cell Research & Application, Institute for Integrated Cell – Material Sciences; Senior Investigator & Professor of Anatomy – Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan; J. David Gladstone Institutes, University of California at San Francisco(*) 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (with Sir John Gurdon) |
Cell Biology | Contributions to stem cell science that led to the 2007 discovery of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells |
| Rudolf Jaenisch, M.D. Professor of Biology – Whitehead Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
Molecular and Cell Biology | Contributions to stem cell science that led to the 2007 discovery of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells |
| James Thomson, Ph.D. Director of Regenerative Biology and John D. MacArthur Professor; Adjunct Professor of Molecular, Cellular, & Developmental Biology – Morgridge Institute for Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine |
Cell biology – stem cells | Groundbreaking discovery made a decade before of human embryonic stem (ES) cells and subsequent work in developing induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells |
| 2007 Massry Prize Co-Recipients – PET Scan; Its Clinical Applications | ||
| Michael Phelps, Ph.D. Norton Simon Professor & Chair, Molecular & Medical Pharmacology; Director, Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging – University of California at Los Angeles, David Geffen School of Medicine |
Pharmacology | The Invention of Positron Emission Tomography |
| 2006 Massry Prize Co-Recipients – Novel Therapeutics | ||
| Akira Endo, Ph.D. President – Biopharm Research Laboratories, Tokyo |
Biochemistry | The Discovery of Statin Drugs |
| 2005 Massry Prize Co-Recipients – RNA Interference | ||
| Andrew Fire, Ph.D. (*) Professor of pathology and genetics – Stanford University School of Medicine(*) Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (with Craig Mello) |
Molecular Genetics | Co-discovery of RNA interference |
| Craig Mello, Ph.D. (*) Blais University Chair in Molecular Medicine and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator – University of Massachusetts Medical School(*) 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (with Andrew Fire) |
Molecular Genetics | Co-discovery of RNA interference |
| David Baulcombe, Ph.D. Professor of Botany at Cambridge University – The Sainsbury Laboratory, University of East Anglia |
Plant Scientist and Geneticist | Work in plants leading to the discovery of RNA interference |
| 2004 Massry Prize Co-Recipients – Ribosomal Structure | ||
| Harry Noller, Ph.D. Director, Center for Molecular Biology of RNA, Sinsheimer Professor of Molecular Biology – University of California at Santa Cruz |
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology | Groundbreaking research on the structure and function of the ribosome |
| Ada Yonath, Ph.D. (*) Director, Helen & Milton A. Kimmelman Center for Biomolecular Structure & Assembly; Martin S. & Helen Kimmel Professorial Chair – Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovat, Israel(*) 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz) |
Crystallography | Groundbreaking research on the structure and function of the ribosome |
| 2003 Massry Prize Co-Recipients – Nuclear Chromation | ||
| C. David Allis, Ph.D. Head, Laboratory of Chromatin Biology and Epigenetics; Joy & Jack Fishman Professor – Rockefeller University |
Molecular Biology | Deciphering and translating the histone code |
| Roger Kornberg, Ph.D. (*) Professor of structural biology – Stanford University Medical School(*) 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry |
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology | Studies of the process by which genetic information from DNA is copied to RNA, “the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription”. Deciphering and translating the histone code |
| Michael Grunstein, Ph.D. D Distinguished Professor of Biological Chemistry – UCLA Geffen School of Medicine |
Molecular Genetics | Deciphering and translating the histone code |
| 2002 Massry Prize Co-Recipients – Transgenics | ||
| Mario Capecchi, Ph.D. (*) Distinguished professor of human genetics & biology – University of Utah(*) 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (with Oliver Smithies and Martin Evans) |
Molecular Genetics | The discovery of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells |
| Oliver Smithies, Ph.D. (*) Excellence Professor of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill(*) 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (with Mario Capecchi and Martin Evans) |
Molecular Genetics | Discovery of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells |
| 2001 Massry Prize Co-Recipients – The Ubiquitin System | ||
| Alexander Varshavsky, Ph.D. Smits Professor of Cell Biology – California Institute for Technology |
Molecular biology | The discovery of the role of ubiquitin in protein degradation |
| Avram Hershko, M.D., Ph.D. (*) Distinguished Professor – Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion, Haifa, Israel(*) 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (with Aaron Ciechanover and Irwin Rose) |
Biochemistry | The discovery of the role of ubiquitin in protein degradation |
| 2000 Massry Prize Co-Recipients – Cell Cycle | ||
| Lee Hartwell, Ph.D. (*) President & Director; Professor of Genetics – Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, University of Washington(*) 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine |
Molecular Genetics | The discovery of more than 50 genes crucial to controlling the cell cycle, cell growth, and cell development |
| 1999 Massry Prize Co-Recipients – Protein Traficking | ||
| Gunter Blobel, Ph.D. (*) John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Professor – Rockefeller University(*) 1999 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine |
Cell Biology | The discovery that proteins have signals that govern their movement and position in the cell |
| 1998 Massry Prize Co-Recipients – Growth Factors | ||
| Judah Folkman, M.D. (deceased) Director, Vascular Biology Program; Julia Dyckman Andrus Professor of Pediatric Surgery – Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School |
Surgery and Cell Biology | Mechanisms of angiogenesis. This work founded the anti-angiogenic approach to cancer therapy. |
| 1997 Massry Prize Co-Recipients – Regulation of Transcription | ||
| Mark Ptashne, Ph.D. Ludwig Chair of Molecular Biology – Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center |
Molecular biology | Discoveries leading to the understanding of how regulatory proteins control the transcription of genes |
| 1996 Massry Prize Co-Recipients – Signal Transduction | ||
| Michael J. Berridge, Ph.D. Emeritus Babraham Fellow, Signalling Programme Department; Honorary Professor of Cell Signalling – Babraham Institute, University of Cambridge |
Physiology and biochemistry | The discovery that inositol triphosphate acts as second messenger, linking events at the plasma membrane with the release of Ca2+ within the cell |