2003 Winners
Grand prize: Lei Wang
Lei Wang received the grand prize for his essay, "Expansion of the Genetic Code." Dr. Wang was born in Tonggu, China. He attended Peking University and received his bachelor's degree in organic chemistry in 1994 and his master's degree in physical chemistry in 1997. At Peking University, he did research in Dr. Zhongfan Liu's laboratory, where he used scanning probe microscopy to investigate the properties of nanoparticles. He went to the United States to pursue graduate studies at the University of California at Berkeley. Under the guidance of Dr. Peter G. Schultz, Dr. Wang developed a general method for genetically encoding unnatural amino acids into proteins in live cells. After receiving his Ph.D. in 2002, Dr. Wang joined Dr. Roger Y. Tsien's group at the University of California, San Diego, for postdoctoral training as a Merck Fellow of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.
North America: Jeff Levsky
Jeff Levsky for his essay, "Simple Single Cells," based on his Ph.D. research in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Singer at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, New York. Dr. Levsky was born in Washington, DC, in 1978. He grew up all over the world in places including Alabama, South Korea, Washington state, Maryland, and West Germany, alternating between dependents-of-military and Jewish private schools. He graduated from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, in 1998 with a bachelor's degree in both Physiology and Computing and Information Systems. He went to New York to join the Medical Scientist Training Program at Albert Einstein University. Here, in Dr. Singer's group, he studied the development of single-cell gene expression profiling technology. Dr. Levsky is currently completing his clinical training, juggling his hours between the Jewish study hall, his family, and Bronx hospitals. He is searching for a residency position to pursue a physician-scientist career in imaging and computing.
Europe: Rut Carballido-López
Rut Carballido-López for her essay, "Shaping Bacteria: The Actin-Like Prokaryotic Cytoskeleton," based on research performed under the guidance of Prof. Jeff Errington at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, UK. Dr. Carbadillo-Lopez left her home town of Barcelona, Spain, at the age of 17 to attend the National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA) in Lyon, France, and graduated in 1996 with an engineering degree in biochemistry. After 17 months in the Vitamin Research Department of F. Hoffmann-La Roche in Basel, Switzerland, she realized that rather than focus on the practical application of biotechnologies, she would prefer to work to elucidate unresolved questions in biology. To this end, she obtained a master's degree in general microbiology at the Pasteur Institute of Paris and, after being awarded a Marie Curie Research Training grant from the European Community, joined the University of Oxford as a graduate student. Working as a graduate student in the laboratory of Prof. Jeff Errington, she showed that bacteria possess an actin-like cytoskeleton that is the determinant of cell shape. During this time, she acquired a large variety of genetic, biochemical, and cytological techniques and, most importantly, discovered the beauty hidden in bacteria and her passion for research. After receiving her Ph.D. in 2002, she was awarded a Long-Term Fellowship from the Human Frontiers Science Program Organization for postdoctoral training. She also received the Young Microbiologist of the Year Award (2001), the Promega Young Life Scientist of the Year Award (2002), and the Nat Sternberg Thesis Prize (2003).
Europe: Ravi Kamath
Ravi Kamath for his essay, "Functional Genomics in C. elegans Using RNAi," based on his Ph.D. research performed in the laboratory of Dr. Julie Ahringer at the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Institute of Cancer and Developmental Biology. Dr. Kamath was born in Ohio and graduated from high school in Overland Park, Kansas. He began doing molecular biology research at the age of 13, when he worked in the laboratory of Dr. Joan Hunt at the University of Kansas Medical Center. After completing an undergraduate degree in Biochemical Sciences at Harvard University, he entered Harvard Medical School in 1997. Between his second and third years of medical school, he took time off in order to pursue graduate studies in Genetics at the University of Cambridge as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Predoctoral Fellow. Working in Dr. Ahringer's laboratory, he developed methods for rapidly inactivating genes in C. elegans on a large scale and applied these techniques to perform the first comprehensive study of gene function in any animal. The technologies he developed have been shared with other laboratories, where they are being used to expedite the discovery of genes involved in a wide range of biological processes. He completed his Ph.D. degree in 2002 and has since returned to complete his medical degree at Harvard, where he is currently in his final year.
All Other Countries: Qing Chen
Qing Chen for her essay, "Induction of bgl Operon Expression in E. coli: Novel Insights into Sensor Stimulation and Signaling," based on research in the laboratory of Prof. Orna Amster-Choder at the Hebrew University Medical School, Israel. Dr. Chen was born in 1964 in Jinan, China. She received her M.D. degree in 1986 and a master's degree in biochemistry in 1991 from the Medical School of Shandong University. She worked as a lecturer in the Department of Biochemistry at the Medical School of Beijing University for 2 years before going to Jerusalem to pursue Ph.D. studies in the Department of Molecular Biology at Hebrew University. Under the mentorship of Prof. Amster-Choder, she studied the molecular basis for sensing and signaling, using the bacterial bgl sensory system as a model system. In 2002, she was awarded her Ph.D. degree and received the Kennedy-Leigh Prize for outstanding Ph.D. research performed at the Hebrew University and the Faculty of Medicine Prize for an excellent dissertation. In 1998, she left Israel for a research associate position in the laboratory of Prof. Robert Kadner at the University of Virginia, where she continued her research on signal transduction in E. coli. She is currently a research scientist in the laboratory of Dr. Malabi Venkatensan at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Maryland. Her aim is to identify unique genomic virulence determinants of enterotoxigenic E. coli and eventually to develop new vaccines against the relevant diseases. Dr. Chen is married with two wonderful children.
All Other Countries: David Lando
David Lando for his essay, "The Huff and Puff of HIF Regulation," based on his Ph.D. research carried out in the laboratory of Dr. Murray Whitelaw in the Department of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Adelaide, Australia. Dr. Lando was born in 1969 in Mildura, a small Australian country town. He obtained his B.Sc. degree in 1990 from Flinders University of South Australia. After spending 6 years working as a scientist for a local biotechnology company, Dr. Lando decided to return to university to work toward a doctoral degree. Under the guidance of Dr. Whitelaw, he studied the mechanisms of regulation of hypoxia-inducible transcription factors. After completing his Ph.D., he joined the laboratory of Dr. Tony Kouzarides at the Wellcome Trust Cancer Research UK Institute in Cambridge, where he currently holds a C. J. Martin Fellowship from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia.
