Royal Society honours MRC Chief Executive and scientists
Friday 16 May 2008
The world’s oldest scientific academy has elected 44 scientists from across all disciplines to its ranks. The list includes MRC Chief Executive, Sir Leszek Borysiewicz and many others from the wider MRC family. We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate them all on their achievement.
The new fellows from MRC units elected to the science ‘Hall of Fame’ include:
Professor Dario Alessi, Professor of Signal Transduction at the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit, who has made major contributions to our understanding of how mutations in particular enzymes cause diabetes, cancer and hypertension.
Professor John Duncan, assistant director of the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit whose research centres on the brain basis for attention, intelligence and cognitive control, including studies of normal cognition and behaviour, impairments following brain damage, functional brain imaging, and single cell electrophysiology.
Dr Jan Löwe, senior scientist, at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, whose landmark work elucidating the structure and function of proteins involved in bacterial cell division has already led to widespread recognition.
Dr Harvey McMahon, group leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, whose work on unravelling the molecular mechanisms of how materials pass in and out of cells could have implications in a wide range of genetic disorders.
Dr Anne O'Garra, head of the division of immunoregulation at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research, whose work on the regulation of innate and adaptive immune responses to different pathogens is leading to improved adjuvants and vaccines for prevention or therapeutic intervention in infectious diseases.
Current and past recipients of MRC funding who join these scientists are Professor Alan Ashworth, director of the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Centre at the Institute of Cancer Research, Professor Brian Foster, Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Oxford, Professor Stephen Jackson, Frederick James Quick Professor of Biology at the University of Cambridge and head of Cancer Research UK Laboratories, the Gurdon Institute of Cancer and Developmental Biology, Professor Michael Alpers, John Curtin Distinguished Professor at the Curtin University of Technology, Professor Laurence Pearl, Professor of Protein Crystallography at the Institute of Cancer Research, Claudio Daniel Stern, Professor of Anatomy at University College London and Professor Michael Stratton, deputy director of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and Professor of Cancer Genetics at the Institute of Cancer Research.
Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford, chair of the Office for Strategic Coordination of Health Research and former member of the MRC Council, has also been elected.
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