 UMass Amherst Scientist's Protein Research Recognized With $2.5 Million Pioneer Award
Sept. 19, 2006
AMHERST, Mass. – Research into how proteins fold and why they misfold—a hallmark of many neurodegenerative diseases—has garnered a $2.5 million award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for University of Massachusetts Amherst scientist Lila M. Gierasch.
Gierasch, Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Chemistry in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, will receive a 2006 NIH Director’s Pioneer Award today at a ceremony in Washington D.C. The award provides $2.5 million in direct costs over five years.
The Pioneer Award is given to exceptionally creative scientists who take highly innovative approaches to major challenges in biomedical research. Gierasch will use the award to continue her investigations of protein folding in the complex environment of a cell and explore how diseases may arise from folding mistakes. The award is part of the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research program.
“Professor Gierasch is one of our outstanding scientists,” says George M. Langford, dean of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. “Her success in this national competition for one of the prestigious NIH Pioneer Awards generates excitement and momentum for the new biomedical initiative in the College of Natural Science and Mathematics.”
Gierasch’s honors include the Vincent du Vigneaud Award, a Sloan Fellowship, the Garvan-Olin Medal of the American Chemical Society and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. She has more than 200 publications in scholarly journals and has served on the National Advisory Council for the General Medical Sciences Institute of NIH, as well as the Advisory Committee for the Math and Physical Sciences Division of the National Science Foundation. Gierasch received her doctorate in biophysics from Harvard in 1975. Her bachelor’s degree is from Mount Holyoke College, which recognized her with an honorary degree in 2002.
“The 2006 Pioneer Award recipients are a diverse group of forward-thinking scientists whose work could transform medical research,” said Elias A. Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health. “The awards will give them the intellectual freedom to pursue exciting new research directions and opportunities in a range of scientific areas.”
“In addition to supporting outstanding research, the Pioneer Award is an innovation in its own right. It is one way we are exploring of funding unconventional ideas that are promising but might not fare well in the traditional peer review system,” Zerhouni noted.
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