1998 Winners

Grand prize: Hiroyuki Noji

Hiroyuki Noji was born on 8 September 1969 in Sapporo, Hokkaido. He earned his masters thesis in the laboratory of Tairo Oshima in the Department of Bioscience of the Graduate School of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, in Yokohama. His thesis topic was heat stabilization of 3-isopropylmalate dehydrogenase by random screening. He received his doctoral training at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1995 in the Department of Electronic Chemistry, Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Science and Engineering, in the laboratory of Masasuke Yoshida.

Dr. Noji's Ph.D. thesis topic was on the detection of the rotation of the g subunit of F1-ATPase. As part of his search for methods to detect the rotation, Dr. Noji participated in the 33rd Biophysical Society meeting of Japan in Sapporo. While there, he learned of techniques for the detection of single molecules and met with Ichiro Sase, a student in the laboratory of Kazuhiko Kinosita Jr., of Keio University, who reported the detection of the polarization of a single molecule of fluorescent dye. Soon afterward, he began collaborating with Ryohei Yasuda in Kinosita's laboratory on the detection of the rotation using the method of single molecule detection. They detected the rotation of the g subunit in September 1996, and Dr. Noji completed his doctoral work in December 1997.

Since January, Dr. Noji has studied the mechanism for the energy conversion of ATP synthase as a postdoctoral researcher in the CREST genetic programming team 13, organized by Keio University's Kinosita.

Europe: Stephane Marcand

Stephane Marcand for his essay, "A protein-counting mechanism regulates telomere length, "which is based on his doctoral research in the laboratory of David Shore at Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Department of Microbiology, and in the laboratory of Eric Gilson (department of molecular and cellular biology) at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Lyon. Dr. Marcand received his undergraduate and graduate training in Lyon, where he grew up. His dissertation research centered on the multifunctionality of telomeres in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Carl Mann at the Commissariat a L'Energie Atomique/Saclay, near Paris.

North America: Jamie H. Cate

Jamie H. Cate, for his essay, "Structural Basis for an RNA World," which is based on his research conducted in the laboratory of Jennifer Doudna at Yale University. Dr. Cate did his undergraduate work at the University of Denver, where he became excited about structural biology while attending the classes of T. Gregory Dewey and working on rhodopsin in Dewey's laboratory. He was awarded a masters in biochemistry at the University of Colorado, Boulder, for his work on the allosteric mechanism of phosphofructokinase. This work was performed in the laboratory of Craig Kundrot in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. During this time , he became interested in RNA structural biology and started working with Jennifer Doudna, then a postdoctoral fellow in the labs of Kundrot and Tom Cech. He solved the X-ray crystal structure of the T. thermophilus group I intron P4-P6 domain in Doudna's lab at Yale. Dr. Cate is currently a Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Harry Noller at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In 1999, he will join the faculty of the Department of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an associate member of the Whitehead Institute.

North America: Arul M. Chinnaiyan

Arul M. Chinnaiyan, for his essay, "Destined to Die: Molecular Dissection of the Cell Death Machine," which describes his doctoral research under the mentorship of Vishva M. Dixit in the Department of Pathology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Dr. Chinnaiyan majored in cellular and molecular biology at the University of Michigan and completed his undergraduate honors thesis in the laboratory of Stephen J. Weiss, where he worked on various aspects of neutrophil biology. His doctoral thesis investigated CD95 signaling and how core components of the cell suicide apparatus interact and function.

North America: Camilla M. Kao

Camilla M. Kao, for her essay "Modular Polyketide Synthases: Programming and Engineering Chemical Diversity," work performed in the laboratory of Chaitan Khosla, Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University. She received her bachelors degree in chemical engineering from Rice University. Through her doctoral research, Kao helped develop a system for genetically manipulating the structure of the enzymes that make polyketides, allowing exploration of how the enzymes work. She is currently a postdoctoral student of Patrick O. Brown in the Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University School of Medicine.

Japan: Taro Nishinaka

Taro Nishinaka, for his essay, "A Novel Configuration of DNA Induced by Homologous Recombination," describing work performed at the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN) and at the University of Tokyo. Dr. Nishinaka graduated from the Department of Chemistry, Factory of Science, University of Tokyo, in 1992. While there, he became interested in both organic chemistry and molecular biology. He became especially interested in the triplex DNA structure formed by recombination proteins. His construction of a base triplet model for the structure was the beginning of his research into DNA structure in homologous recombination. Dr. Nishinaka currently holds a special postdoctoral research fellowship in the laboratory of Takehiko Shibata at RIKEN.