Class
| • | 2. Biological Sciences | [X] |
| | 1 | Name: | Dr. Christian de Duve | | | Institution: | Rockefeller University & Catholic University, Louvain | | | Year Elected: | 1991 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 202. Cellular and Developmental Biology | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1917 | | | Death Date: | May 4, 2013 | | | | | | |
Belgian biochemist Christian de Duve had been Emeritus Professor at both Catholic University, Louvain (since 1985) and Rockefeller University (since 1988) prior to his death on May 4, 2013 at the age of 95 at his home in Nethen, Belgium. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Louvain in 1945, training under Albert Claude and Hugo Theorell. A specialist in subcellular biochemistry and cell biology, Dr. de Duve was credited with discovering peroxisomes, a cell organelle, and his unique improvements on zonal centrifugation in the early 1960s led to the identification of the lysosomal fractions and its most important function in health and disease. His work on cell fractionalization has also provided a great deal of insight into the function of cell structures. For his work describing the structure and function of organelles in biological cells, Dr. de Duve, together with Albert Claude and George E. Palade, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1974. He is also the recipient of the Heineken Medal (1973) and a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1975). He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1991. | |
| 2 | Name: | Dr. Peter R. Grant | | | Institution: | Princeton University | | | Year Elected: | 1991 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1936 | | | | | | |
A key figure in modern evolutionary biology, Peter R. Grant is most interested in ecology, evolution and behavior. He specializes in the finches of the Galapagos Islands that were originally studied by Charles Darwin and has conducted long-term studies of individual finch populations on some of the smaller islands. He has been able to show that, even over a space of time as short as 15 years, there have been numerous climate changes which have led to clear evidence of natural selection influencing and modifying the genetically determined physical characteristics of the indiviudal finches within a population. With numerous publications to his credit, Dr. Grant has been a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University since 1985. He was educated at the University of Cambridge, the University of British Columbia and Yale University and previously taught at McGill University and the University of Michigan. He has received awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship (1985-86), an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (1996) and the American Ornithologists' Union's Brewster Medal (1983). He is a fellow of the Royal Society of London (1987), the Royal Society of Canada and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1997) and a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences (2007). He has also shared numerous awards with his wife, fellow evolutionary ecologist Rosemary Grant. These include the Academy of Natural Science's Leidy Medal (1994), the E.O. Wilson Prize of the American Society of Naturalists (1998), the Darwin Medal for Evolutionary Biology (2003), the A.I.B.S. Outstanding Scientist Award (2005), the Balzan Prize in Population Biology (2005), the Linnean Society of London's Darwin-Wallace Medal (2008), the Kyoto Prize from the Inamori Foundation (2009), the Royal Medal in Biology from the Royal Society of London (2017), and the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2017) | |
| 3 | Name: | Dr. Alfred G. Knudson | | | Institution: | Fox Chase Cancer Center | | | Year Elected: | 1991 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 207. Genetics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1922 | | | Death Date: | July 10, 2016 | | | | | | |
Alfred G. Knudson was a senior member at the Fox Chase Cancer Center's Institute for Cancer Research since 1976. He earned his M.D. from Columbia University in 1947 and his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1956. Prior to joining Fox Chase as scientific director (1976-83) and president (1980-82), he served as chairman of the City of Hope Medical Center's department of pediatrics (1956-62) and department of biology (1962-66); as professor and associate dean at State University of New York, Stony Brook (1966-69); and as professor and dean of the University of Texas, Houston's Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and professor at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (1970-76). Having advanced his two-hit hypothesis that hereditary cancers are due to the somatic loss or mutation of the second allele of a gene responsible for regulating cell growth and development, Dr. Knudson was known for having made the first rational explanation, in modern genetic terms, for the relationship between hereditary and non-hereditary cancers. His breakthrough led to a great surge of productivity in many laboratories and an advanced understanding of errors in the genetic program that turn normal cells into cancer cells. Dr. Knudson was the recipient of many distinguished awards, including the Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award (1998), the Gairdner Award (1997) and the Kyoto Prize (2004). Alfred Knudson died July 10, 2016, at the age of 93, at his home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. | |
| 4 | Name: | Dr. Fernando Nottebohm | | | Institution: | Rockefeller University | | | Year Elected: | 1991 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 205. Microbiology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1940 | | | | | | |
Argentine biologist Fernando Nottebohm has been at Rockefeller University since 1967 and a professor since 1976. He became director of the Rockefeller University Field Research Center for Ethology and Ecology in 1981. His investigations focused on diverse aspects of vocal learning in birds, from the ecological correlates of song dialect boundaries to neuronal replacement in adult brain. He described central pathways for the acquisition and production of learned song, then showed that several of the song nuclei were much larger in males than in females. These same nuclei also showed seasonal changes in size, as the levels of gonadal hormones changed cyclically and, in some species left side dominance which, however, could be reversed. Perhaps his most surprising finding was that some classes of song system neurons continued to be produced in adult brain, replacing, numerically, others that had died. Nottebohm and his colleagues described where these new neurons were born, the neurogenic stem cells and how the daughter cells migrated and eventually joined existing circuits. Dr. Nottebohm has received many awards for his work and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. | |
| 5 | Name: | Dr. Phillip A. Sharp | | | Institution: | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | | | Year Elected: | 1991 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 202. Cellular and Developmental Biology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1944 | | | | | | |
Phillip A. Sharp received his D.Phil. from the University of Illinois in 1969 and, after postgraduate training first at the California Institute of Technology and later Cold Spring Harbor, he joined the Center for Cancer Research (now the Koch Institute) and Department of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974. He served as the Center's director (1985-91) and head of the Biology Department (1991-99) and was founding director of the McGovern Institute from 2000-04. Dr. Sharp is currently Institute Professor, the highest academic rank. Throughout his career as a scientist and educator, Dr. Sharp has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, the National Medal of Science, the Inaugural Double Helix Medal from Cold Spring Harbor, and the Hope Funds for Cancer Research Award for Excellence in Basic Science (2013). In 1993, he received the Nobel Prize for the discovery that genes contain nonsense segments that are edited out by cells in the course of utilizing genetic information. His work shattered existing scientific dogma and gave scientists a better understanding of how some hereditary diseases and cancers develop, thereby opening further the possibilities of gene therapy. Dr. Sharp is currently member of the Board of Trustees of MGH and of the Scientific Board of the Ludwig Institute. He is co-founder and a member of the Board of Directors of Biogen Idec, Inc., and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Sharp has been a member of the American Philosophical Society since 1991. In 1999 he was awarded the Society's Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences. The citation read "in recognition of his work on the biology of tumor viruses which led to his discovery that genes contain nonsense segments that are edited out by cells in the course of utilizing genetic information. This landmark achievement, known as RNA splicing, altered the course of molecular biology." He is also the 2010 recipient of the American Association for Cancer Research's Margaret Foti Award for Leadership and Extraordinary Achievements in Cancer Research. In 2015 he received the Othmer Gold Medal. | |
| 6 | Name: | Dr. Peter K. Vogt | | | Institution: | The Scripps Research Institute | | | Year Elected: | 1991 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 209. Neurobiology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1932 | | | | | | |
Peter Vogt's work on the biology and genetics of retroviruses has opened major new horizons in understanding cancer. He and his colleagues were the first to identify a specific cancer-causing gene (oncogene) of a retrovirus and to establish (with Stehelin, Varmus and Bishop) the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes. These discoveries form the conceptual basis of contemporary research on the genesis of cancer. More recently, Dr. Vogt has also discovered new oncogenes that play key roles in regulating the growth of cells. A professor at the Scripps Research Institute since 1993, Dr. Vogt has also served as assistant and associate professor of pathology at the University of Colorado (1962-67); as professor of microbiology at the University of Washington (1967-71); and as Hastings (Distinguished) Professor of Microbiology at the University of Southern California (1971-93). A member of the National Academy of Sciences (1980), the Institute of Medicine (2003) and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (2004), he is also the recipient of awards such as the Max Planck Society's Irene-Vogeler Prize (1976) and the ICN International Prize in Virology (1989). An accomplished painter, Dr. Vogt's artistic work can be viewed at www. pkvogt.com. | |
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