Three scientists have won the 2013 Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine.
Brandeis University’s Jeffrey C. Hall, Ph.D., and Michael Rosbash, Ph.D., and the Rockefeller University’s Michael W. Young, Ph.D., this week are lauded for their work unearthing the molecular mechanisms underlying circadian rhythms.
The three will share the $1 million honorarium to be given with the prize, which is awarded annually to those “who have achieved significant breakthroughs in academic and scientific research or applications and whose work has resulted in a positive and profound impact on mankind,” according to the Shaw Prize Foundation.
Beyond the Shaw honor, Dr. Young has also been recognized for his circadian rhythm work with the 2012 Massry Prize, the 2012 Canada Gairdner International Award, and Columbia University’s Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize in 2011.
“It is exceptionally gratifying to see Mike’s research receive this latest recognition,” Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Rockefeller’s president, said in a statement. “The discoveries he and his colleagues have made about circadian rhythms have contributed greatly to our understanding of how the human body works, and is an example of how basic research in science can be translated to new insights in physiology and human health.”
A Brandeis statement added: “Rosbash and Hall spent more than three decades at Brandeis collaboratively researching circadian rhythms, the biological clock which governs functions such as sleep and wakefulness, metabolism, and hormone levels in organisms as simple as fruit flies and as complex as humans.”
The three scientists will receive the prize during a ceremony to be held in Hong Kong in September.
