COLUMBIA TO AWARD 2007 HORWITZ PRIZE
TO THREE GENERATIONS OF TEACHER-STUDENT SCIENTISTS
Drs. Gall of Carnegie Institution, Blackburn of UCSF &
Greider of Johns Hopkins
Enlarge Fundamental Understanding of Aging
NEW YORK – October 3, 2007 - Columbia University will award the 2007 Louisa
Gross Horwitz Prize to Joseph G. Gall, Ph.D., a cell biologist
at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Embryology,
Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Ph.D., a biologist and physiologist at
the University of California, San Francisco and Carol W. Greider,
Ph.D., a molecular biologist and geneticist at the Johns Hopkins
University School of Medicine. The awardees, who represent three
generations of teacher-student scientists, will be honored for
work that has contributed to the fundamental understanding of
the aging process.
“The relationships among these three researchers represent the
best promise of academic medicine – science educators guiding
their students toward discovery that furthers understandings for
the entire biomedical and science community,” said Lee Goldman,
M.D., executive vice president of Columbia University and dean
of the faculties of health sciences and medicine at Columbia
University Medical Center.
“We are pleased to continue our Horwitz tradition by awarding
this year’s prize to Joseph Gall, Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol
Greider,” said David Hirsh, Ph.D., executive vice president for
research at Columbia University. “Our greater knowledge of the
aging process, based on their research, is already impacting the
study of cell cycles and cell death – which is relevant to
understanding neurodegenerative diseases and cancer.”
2007 Dinner Award Pictures
The Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize was established by
Columbia University to recognize outstanding contributions to
basic research in the fields of biology and biochemistry.
Awarded annually since 1967, the prize is named for the mother
of Columbia benefactor S. Gross Horwitz. Louisa Gross Horwitz
was daughter of Dr. Samuel David Gross, author of “A System of
Surgery” and a founder of the American Medical Association. For
additional information about the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize,
visit:
http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/horwitz
The Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize Lectures, presentations by
the scientists, will be held on Monday, November 19. Dr. Gall
will give his lecture at 10 a.m. in the Roone Arledge Cinema,
Alfred Lerner Hall (2920 Broadway at W. 115th St.) at Columbia
University’s Morningside Campus. Dr. Blackburn will give her
lecture at 1:30 p.m., followed by Dr. Greider’s lecture at 3
p.m., both in the College of Physicians & Surgeons building (650
West 168th Street), Alumni Auditorium, at Columbia University
Medical Center. For more information about the lectures, visit
http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/events/deanlectures/#horwitz_prize
“These researchers – representing three generations of science
passed down from teacher to student – have all contributed to
the fundamental understanding of the process of aging, a body of
work of enormous depth and value that may lead us to the
discovery of keys to longevity and mortality,” said Andrew R.
Marks, M.D., chair of the Horwitz Prize Committee at Columbia
University. Dr. Marks is the Wu Professor of Molecular
Cardiology and chairman of the Department of Physiology and
Cellular Biophysics at Columbia University College of Physicians
and Surgeons.
Pursuit of Basic Questions about Cell Workings Leads to
Insights into Aging & Cancer
Work by these researchers led to discovery of the structure of
telomeres and telomerase. It was started to answer two very
fundamental questions: what prevents the cell from destroying
its own chromosomes, and what prevents the chromosomes from
shrinking.
Before the late 1970s and 1980s when the prize-winning work was
performed, there were two mysteries about chromosomes. One,
chromosomes are long lines of DNA so they have two ends, but
cells recognize accidental breaks in chromosomes by their broken
ends – why don’t the cells try to repair the ends of
chromosomes? And even if they did, this might have negative
consequences, e.g. a cell could join two different chromosomes
together.
The second puzzle arose following discovery of how DNA copies
itself. The process cannot copy the very ends of the
chromosomes. So if the DNA is copied repeatedly (as in
development, when DNA of one cell is copied in all subsequent
cells) the chromosome eventually shortens so much that the cells
are no longer viable.
Researchers surmised that something unusual was occurring at the
ends of the chromosomes, known as telomeres.
Using animal models developed by Dr. Gall, Dr. Blackburn, then a
research fellow in his lab at Yale, discovered a special DNA
sequence – TTAGGG in humans – that is found nearly identically
at the telomeres of nearly every type of animal and plant
species. The telomeres protect the ends of the chromosomes and
prevent them from opening up, which could result in separation
of the two strands of DNA. Thus, the telomeres act as clamps on
the ends of the chromosomes. In humans, there are thousands of
these segments at the end of a chromosome.
Later, in Dr. Blackburn’s laboratory at the University of
California at Berkeley, she and
Dr. Carol Grieder, then a research fellow, discovered an enzyme
central to aging and cancer, which they named “telomerase.”
Though Drs. Gall, Blackburn and Greider did not set out to
answer questions about aging, telomerase has provided answers.
The sequencing of the telomeres and the discovery of telomerase
has lead to an entirely new field of research that has yielded
insights into the mechanisms of aging and the causes of cancer.
Because most human cells have limited amounts of telomerase,
they have a limited lifespan. Adding telomerase to human cells
in culture dishes makes cells immortal, giving telomerase a dark
side: almost all cancer cells produce telomerase to fuel their
uncontrollable proliferation. Drugs that inhibit telomerase are
currently being sought as potential new treatments for cancer.
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