APS Member History

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1	Name:	Dr. Richard Axel
	Institution:	Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Columbia University
	Year Elected:	2003
	Class:	2. Biological Sciences
	Subdivision:	208. Plant Sciences
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Living
	Birth Date:	1946

	Richard Axel is University Professor at Columbia University and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He has pioneered the application of the techniques of molecular genetics to the analysis of cell function eukaryotic organisms. Toward that goal, he first developed techniques for integrating virtually any gene into any mammalian cell in such a way that the genes are stably integrated within the chromosome of the recipient cell, function normally, and are appropriately regulated. The gene transfer techniques developed by Dr. Axel have revolutionized molecular structure and function. Dr. Axel has now gone on to apply the power of molecular genetics to the study of cellular function in the nervous system. This work led to the cloning by Drs. Axel and Buck of the olfactory receptors, and to a mapping of the distribution of these receptors, first on the olfactory epithelium and then on the olfactory bulb. Dr. Axel next extended this approach to a second olfactory system, the vomeronasal organ, and found a second novel family of genes which encode the presumed receptors for pheromones. Finally he is exploring the behavioral function of these receptors in mice and flies. This brilliant series of studies has revolutionized the study of the sense of smell. In 2009 he won the Tower of Hope Excellence in Science Award from the Israel Cancer Research Fund.

2	Name:	Dr. Bryan C. Clarke
	Institution:	University of Nottingham
	Year Elected:	2003
	Class:	2. Biological Sciences
	Subdivision:	203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology
	Residency:	International
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1932
	Death Date:	February 27, 2014

	Bryan Clarke had a distinguished career as a leading figure in the genetical study of populations in nature. More than any other he demonstrated the widespread occurence and importance of frequency-dependent selection. This work, both theoretical and empirical and strikingly original, has helped to explain such diverse phenomena as clinal variation in gene frequencies, evolutionary dynamics of parasite-host interactions, speciation mechanisms in snails, and the maintenance of genetic variation in human populations. He gained prominence as an international spokesman for ecological genetics and as advisor to organizations including the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Dr. Clarke served on the faculty of the University of Nottingham since 1971 and became Professor of Genetics Emeritus in 1997. He was awarded the Linnean Society of London's Darwin-Wallace Medal in 2008 and the Royal Society's Darwin Medal in 2010. Bryan Clarke died February 27, 2014, at the age of 81 in Nottingham, UK.

3	Name:	Dr. David S. Eisenberg
	Institution:	UCLA-DOE Institute of Genomics and Proteomics; Howard Hughes Medical Institute
	Year Elected:	2003
	Class:	2. Biological Sciences
	Subdivision:	206. Physiology, Biophysics, and Pharmacology
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Living
	Birth Date:	1939

	David Eisenberg received his D.Phil. in theoretical chemistry at Oxford University. In 1967 he joined the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles, where he is currently professor of chemistry and biochemistry, professor of biological chemistry, and director of the UCLA-DOE Center for Genomics and Proteomics. David Eisenberg's breadth and creativity have made him arguably the most influential scientist in modern structural biology. Concepts of protein structure developed by his group, such as the Hydrophobic Moment, Atomic Solvation Parameters, Sequence Profiles, and 3D-1D profiles, have been widely adopted. Their characterization of a new kind of protein interaction, Domain Swapping, has given needed insight into how amyloid proteins cause disease. New computational solutions to assignment of function from sequence, the Rosetta-Stone and Phylogenetic Profiles, helped launch the field of bioinformatics. Dr. Eisenberg also had a key role in creating the Protein Society and a new section of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Eisenberg was a Rhodes Scholar, 1961-64, and a Guggenheim Fellow, 1969-71 and 1985. He received the Stein & Moore Award from the Protein Society in 1996, the Repligen Award in Molecular Biology from the American Chemical Society in 1998, and the Amgen Award from the Protein Society in 2000. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2003.

4	Name:	Dr. Gerald R. Fink
	Institution:	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
	Year Elected:	2003
	Class:	2. Biological Sciences
	Subdivision:	207. Genetics
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Living
	Birth Date:	1940

	Gerald Fink received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1965. In 1967 he joined the faculty of Cornell University where he was professor of genetics and professor of biochemistry. He became professor of molecular genetics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982 and is currently the American Cancer Society Professor. He has been a member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research since 1982 and served as its director from 1990-2001. Gerald Fink is internationally recognized for his contributions in genetics, and is considered a preeminent figure in the field of yeast genetics. His work with yeast yielded deep insights into human genetics, and his long-time teaching commitment to the Cold Spring Harbor Yeast Genetics course has initiated many new researchers into the field. As Whitehead director, he developed and supported nationally-renowned education and public policy programs that continue to exert a profound impact on public understanding of research and biomedicine. Fink's service to the scientific community includes mentorship that will inform the professional practice of generations of researchers to come. Dr. Fink is the recipient of the Award in Molecular Biology from the National Academy of Sciences (1981); the Genetics Society of America Medal (1982); the Yale Science and Engineering Award (1984); the Emil Christian Hansen Foundation Award of Microbiology (1986); the Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal from Yale University (1992); the Bristol-Myers Squibb Infectious Disease Research Award (1993); the Senior Scholar Award from the Ellison Medical Foundation (2001); the George W. Beadle Award from the Genetics Society of America (2001); the Yeast, Genetics and Molecular Biology Lifetime Achievement Award (2002); and the James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award [2018]. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2003.

5	Name:	Dr. Gerald D. Fischbach
	Institution:	Columbia University
	Year Elected:	2003
	Class:	2. Biological Sciences
	Subdivision:	208. Plant Sciences
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Living
	Birth Date:	1938

	Gerald Fischbach received an M.D. at Cornell University Medical School in 1965. Dr. Fischbach was Edison Professor of Neurobiology at the Washington University School of Medicine from 1981-90 and served as chief of the Neurobiology Department of Massachusetts General Hospital and Nathan Pusey Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School from 1990-98. In 1998 he was appointed Director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health. He joined the faculty of Columbia University in 2001 and served as Executive Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Harold and Margaret Hatch Professor of the University before assuming his current role as John E. Borne Professor of Medical and Surgical Research. In 2006 he joined the Simons Foundation as their Scientific Director. Gerald Fischbach pioneered the field of synapse formation with the dramatic discovery that motor neurons form functional synapses with muscle cells in dissociated cell culture. This brilliant advance revolutionized the study of neuronal development in general, and synapse formation in particular, permitting Dr. Fischbach to solve many key problems about the synaptic organization of CNS neurons. Dr. Fischbach showed that motor nerves induce Adh receptor expression at sites of neurotransmitter release, through the release of a diffusible factor, cloned the gene encoding this factor, and identified it as Neuregulin. This discovery represented a landmark in the neurosciences: the delineation of a molecule that directs synapse organization. Dr. Fischbach's studies have transformed the study of synapse formation from a purely physiological field to one that is now in the mainstream of cell and molecular biology. His visionary use of neuronal cell culture has served as a prototype for studies of how synapses form between CNS neurons, and how synaptic plasticity is regulated. Dr. Fischbach received the Foundation Ipsen Neuronal Plasticity Prize in 1998, the Nathan Davis Award in 2000, and the Parkinson's Disease Foundation Honor for Contributions in 2003. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and the Society of Neuroscience, where he served as president from 1983-84. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2003. Web Link 1: simonsfoundation.org

6	Name:	Dr. Simon Asher Levin
	Institution:	Princeton University
	Year Elected:	2003
	Class:	2. Biological Sciences
	Subdivision:	205. Microbiology
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Living
	Birth Date:	1941

	Simon Levin received his Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Maryland in 1964. In 1965 he joined the faculty of Cornell University and remained for more than twenty-five years, serving as the Charles A. Alexander Professor of Biological Sciences, director of the Ecosystem Research Center, and director of the Center for Environmental Research. He was also director of the Princeton Environmental Institute, 1993-98. At Princeton University since 1992, he is currently James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution. In addition, since 2001 he has served as director of the Center for Biocomplexity and associated faculty of the Princeton Environmental Institute. Simon Levin has been the leader in developing the theoretical foundation for the study of ecology and evolution of populations in heterogeneous environments. Implications and extensions of his work have been among the most influential in ecology and conservation biology. Alone and jointly with others, he developed the theory of evolution of populations in heterogeneous environments, and of implications for biodiversity. This led to his most far-reaching contributions, on problems of scale, self-organization of ecosystems, and mechanisms for extrapolation across scales. In recent years, has been a leader in sustainability science, the interface between ecology and economics. Dr. Levin received the MacArthur Award from the Ecological Society of America in 1988; the Distinguished Statistical Ecologist Award from INTERCOL in 1994; the "Most cited paper in the field of Ecology and Environment for the 1990s" from the Institute for Scientific Information in 2000; the Outstanding Paper in the Discipline of Landscape Ecology Award for 2001 from the U.S. Chapter of the International Association for Landscape Ecology; and the 1st Okubo Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001. He also received the Heineken Environmental Prize of the Royal Dutch Academy of Science in 2004, the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences in 2005, and the National Medal of Science in 2015. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences and a Foreign Member of the Instituto Veneto. He also served as president of the Ecological Society of America and the Society of Mathematical Biology. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2003.

7	Name:	Dr. Susan L. Lindquist
	Institution:	Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
	Year Elected:	2003
	Class:	2. Biological Sciences
	Subdivision:	207. Genetics
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1948
	Death Date:	October 27, 2016

	Susan Lindquist was a worldwide leader in the understanding of protein folding in living cells, of enzymes that mediate this process, and of perturbations that result in the formation of abnormal protein aggregates. Some of these aggregates, called prions, are infectious: they can cause abnormal folding and aggregation of otherwise normal proteins. The work of Dr. Lindquist has been instrumental to our understanding of these processes, which underlie major neurodegenerative diseases. Yet another singular contribution by Dr. Lindquist was her discovery that HSP90, a stress protein, functions as a "capacitor" of phenotypic variation, through the ability of HSP90 to buffer against genetic alterations of biochemical pathways, thereby increasing the diversity of phenotypes available for natural selection. This insight revealed a previously unsuspected source of variation that underlies the evolution of living organisms. From 2001 until 2004 Dr. Lindquist directed the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. She served as professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1976 and previously taught at the University of Chicago (1978-2001). She was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2010. Susan Lindquist died October 27, 2016, at the age of 67.

8	Name:	Dr. Arno G. Motulsky
	Institution:	University of Washington
	Year Elected:	2003
	Class:	2. Biological Sciences
	Subdivision:	207. Genetics
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1923
	Death Date:	January 17, 2018

	Arno Motulsky received his M.D. from the University of Illinois in 1947. He joined the faculty of the University of Washington School of Medicine in 1953 and served as the head of the Division of Medical Genetics, director of the Genetics Clinic at the University Hospital, and director of the Center for Inherited Diseases. He was Professor of Medicine and Professor of Genetics Emeritus and associate director of the Center for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health at the University of Washington at the time of his death January 17, 2018, at the age of 94. Arno Motulsky was one of less than half-a-dozen innovators who established the subspecialty of medical genetics and helped bring genetics into the mainstream of clinical medicine beginning in the late 1950s. He had great influence in the field of medical genetics 1) through his students who include a Nobel laureate (Joseph Goldstein), 2) his pioneering research in a wide area including pharmacogenetics, blood disorders (particularly G6PD deficiency and hemoglobinopathies), hyperlipidemias, colorblindness, and Werner syndrome (he suggested its usefulness in the study of aging); and 3) through his textbooks which are now classics: Human Genetics: Problems and Approaches (with Vogel) and The Genetic Basis of Common Disease (with King and Rotter). Dr. Motulsky received several awards, including: the William Allan Memorial Award from the American Society of Human Genetics; the American College of Medical Genetics Foundation Inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award; and the Victor McKusick Leadership Award from the American Society for Human Genetics. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and American Society of Human Genetics, serving as its president, 1977-78. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2003.

9	Name:	Dr. Lucy Shapiro
	Institution:	Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine
	Year Elected:	2003
	Class:	2. Biological Sciences
	Subdivision:	202. Cellular and Developmental Biology
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Living
	Birth Date:	1940

	Lucy Shapiro received her Ph.D. in molecular biology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1966. She joined the faculty of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1967 and served as chairman of the Department of Molecular Biology (1977-86), Kramer Professor of Molecular Biology (1977-86) and director of the Division of Biological Sciences (1981-86). In 1986 she moved to Columbia University as the Higgins Professor of Microbiology and chairman of the Department of Microbiology in the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Crossing to the other coast in 1989 to the Stanford University School of Medicine, Dr. Shapiro became the founder and chairman of its Department of Developmental Biology, and the Joseph D. Grant Professor of Developmental Biology. She is currently Stanford's Ludwig Professor of Cancer Research, and, as of 2001, director of the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine. Lucy Shapiro cultivated a single organism into one of the most powerful experimental systems for understanding the control of the bacterial cell cycle and the establishment of cell fate. Her research has yielded fundamental insights into the bacterial cell as an integrated system in which the transcriptional circuitry is interwoven with the three-dimensional deployment of regulatory and morphological proteins. Her genome-wide transcriptional analysis revealed basic rules for bacterial cell cycle control. In pioneering work, Dr. Shapiro initiated the "cell biology" of prokaryotes, resulting in the first demonstration that proteins are dynamically localized in the cell, adding a spatial dimension to regulatory networks. Dr. Shapiro is a member of the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. She was awarded the Selman A. Waksman Award in Microbiology from the Natural Academy of Sciences, the 2010 Abbott-ASM Lifetime Acheivement Award, the 2012 Horwitz Prize, and the 2012 National Medal of Science. She was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2003.