Gabor Medal

Richard J. Roberts, who received the medal "for his internationally acclaimed contributions to the discovery of RNA splicing and his structural and genetic studies that have extended the range of sequence specificity of restriction and modification of enzymes".

The Gabor Medal is a medal awarded by the Royal Society of London for "acknowledged distinction of interdisciplinary work between the life sciences with other disciplines".^[1] The medal was created in 1989 to honour the memory of Dennis Gabor, and is awarded biennially.^[1] Initially awarded "for acknowledged distinction of work in the life sciences, particularly in the fields of genetic engineering and molecular biology", the criteria for the awarding of the medal was later changed to its current definition.^[1] The medal is targeted at "emerging early to mid career stage scientist[s]" and is accompanied by a £1000 prize.^[1] It was first awarded in 1989 to Noreen Murray "in recognition of her pioneering work in the field of genetic engineering, in particular for her development of the bacteriophage lambda system as a cloning [vector?] into which could be incorporated DNA fragments of over 5 kilobases in length".^[1]

List of recipients

Year	Name	Rationale	Notes
1989	Murray, NoreenNoreen Murray	"in recognition of her pioneering work in the field of genetic engineering, in particular for her development of the bacteriophage lambda system as a cloning [vector?] into which could be incorporated DNA fragments of over 5 kilobases in length"	[2]
1991	Fersht, AlanAlan Fersht	"in recognition of his pioneering work in the use of protein engineering to study protein structure and enzyme function"	[3]
1993	Weissmann, CharlesCharles Weissmann	"in recognition of his many contributions to molecular biology, including his innovative analysis of coliphage Q-beta by the introduction of methods for making site-specific mutations, and the cloning and expression of alpha-interferon genes in bacteria"	—
1995	Hopwood, DavidDavid Hopwood	"in recognition of his pioneering and leading the growing field of the genetics of Streptomyces, and for developing the programming of the pervasive process of polyketide synthesis"	[4]
1997	Holmes, KennethKenneth Holmes	"in recognition of his achievements in molecular biology, in particular his pioneering analyses of biological structures and viruses, and his development of the use of synchrotron radiation for X-ray diffraction experiments, now a widely used technique not only in molecular biology but in physics and materials science"	[5]
1999	Bird, Adrian PeterAdrian Peter Bird	"in recognition of his pioneering work in the study of global mechanisms by which transcription of the mammalian genome is regulated and for his exploration into the molecular basis of fundamental biological mechanisms, particularly his development of ways of analysing methylation patterns of eukaryotic DNA using endonucleases and the discovery of and continued research into a new class of DNA sequences found in all vertebrates"	—
2001	Surani, M. AzimM. Azim Surani	"in recognition of his discovery of mammalian genomic imprinting, revealing the expression of certain autosomal genes according to the parent of origin. Genomic imprinting has major implications for human genetics and the inheritance patterns of human disease and its discovery has been a major fundamental breakthrough that has changed the way we think about genetics in mammals"	[6]
2003	Beggs, JeanJean Beggs	"for her contributions to the isolation and manipulation of recombinant DNA molecules in a eukaryotic organism, adding a new dimension to molecular and cellular biology"	[7]
2005	Crawford, LionelLionel Crawford	"in recognition for his work on the small DNA tumour viruses, specifically the papova virus group, papilloma, polyoma and SV40"	—
2007	Roberts, Richard J.Richard J. Roberts	"for his internationally acclaimed contributions to the discovery of RNA splicing and his structural and genetic studies that have extended the range of sequence specificity of restriction and modification of enzymes"	—
2009	Challis, GregoryGregory Challis	"for his highly interdisciplinary work, exploiting genomics of Streptomyces coelicolor to identify new natural products and biosynthetic enzymes."	[8]
2010	Davies, GideonGideon Davies	"for his highly interdisciplinary work into the three-dimensional structures and reaction coordinates of enzymes, which has transformed glycobiochemistry"	[9]
2011	McLean, AngelaAngela McLean	"for her pivotal work on the mathematical population biology of immunity."	[10]
2013	Toumazou, ChristoferChristofer Toumazou	"for his success in applying semiconductor technology to biomedical and life-science applications, most recently to DNA analysis."	[11]
2015	Benjamin David Simons	"for his work analysing stem cell lineages in development, tissue homeostasis and cancer"	[12]

References

Specific

• "Gabor previous winners 2005 - 1989". The Royal Society. Retrieved 2009-02-05.

General

1. "The Gabor Medal (1989)". The Royal Society. Retrieved 2009-02-05.
2. "Special Minute: Noreen E Murray F.R.S" (PDF). University of Edinburgh. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 20, 2009. Retrieved 2009-02-05.
3. "Trinity College Science Society - Prof Sir Alan Fersht FRS". Trinity College Science Society. Retrieved 2009-02-05.
4. The International Who's Who 2004. Routledge. Retrieved 2009-02-05.
5. "Fascinating Research" (PDF). Max Planck Research. Retrieved 2009-02-05.
6. "CSHL Stem Cells Symposium Chats". Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory. Retrieved 2009-02-05.
7. "Jean Beggs (Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocenter - The University of Manchester)". The University of Manchester. Retrieved 2009-02-05.
8. http://royalsociety.org/Gabor-Medal/ - Retrieved 2010-01-15.
9. "The Gabor Medal (1989)". The Royal Society. Retrieved 14 August 2010.
10. "Gabor Medal". The Royal Society. Retrieved 15 June 2012.
11. "Gabor Medal". The Royal Society. Retrieved 12 September 2013.
12. "Gabor Medal". The Royal Society. Retrieved 20 November 2015.

External links

• Royal Society: Gabor Medal