Now in its second year, the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists recognize the outstanding work of 16 young faculty and postdoctoral scientists from the tri-state area. Each finalist will receive a cash prize of $10,000 in the faculty and $5,000 in the postdoctoral category. Three of the faculty finalists and two of the postdoctoral finalists will go on to be honored as Blavatnik Awards winners in November, receiving an additional $15,000 (faculty) and $10,000 (postdoctoral).
FACULTY
Daphne Bavelier
Age: 42
Position: Associate Professor, Brain & Cognitive Sciences; Center for Visual Science; Center for Language Studies; Associate Director, Rochester Center for Brain Imaging, Adjunct Faculty in Imaging Science, University of Rochester
Category: Behavioral Sciences
Selected Publications
Green, CS; Bavelier, D (2007). Action-video-game experience alters the spatial resolution of vision. Psychological Science Psychological Science 18 (1): 88-94.
Bavelier, D; Dye, MWG; Hauser, PC (2006). Do deaf individuals see better? Trends in Cognitive Sciences 10 (11): 512-518.
Boutla, M; Supalla, T; Newport, EL; Bavelier, D (2004). Short-term memory span: insights from sign language. Nature Neuroscience 7 (9): 997-1002.
Green, CS; Bavelier, D (2003). Action video game modifies visual selective attention. Nature 423 (6939): 534-537.
If you want to learn more about Daphne Bavelier's research, visit her lab website.
Geoffrey Coates
Age: 41
Position: Betty R. Miller Professor of Chemistry and Associate Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Cornell University
Category: Chemistry
Selected Publications
Rowley, JM; Lobkovsky, EB; Coates, GW (2007). Catalytic double carbonylation of epoxides to succinic anhydrides: Catalyst discovery, reaction scope, and mechanism. Journal of the American Chemical Society 129 (16): 4948-4960.
Jeske, RC; DiCiccio, AM; Coates, GW (2007). Alternating copolymerization of Epoxides and cyclic anhydrides: An improved route to aliphatic polyesters. Journal of the American Chemical Society 129 (37): 11330-1.
Church, TL; Getzler, YDYL; Coates, GW (2006). The mechanism of epoxide carbonylation by [Lewis acid](+)[Co(CO)(4)](-) catalysts. Journal of the American Chemical Society 128 (31): 10125-10133.
Cohen, CT; Chu, T; Coates, GW (2005). Cobalt catalysts for the alternating copolymerization of propylene oxide and carbon dioxide: combining high activity and selectivity. Journal of the American Chemical Society 127(31): 10869-10878.
If you want to learn more about Geoffrey Coates' research, visit his lab website.
Steven Gubser
Age: 36
Position: Professor of Physics, Joseph Henry Laboratories, Princeton University
Category: Physics
Selected Publications
Gubser, SS; Pufu, SS; Yarom, A (2008). Sonic booms and diffusion wakes generated by a heavy quark in thermal gauge-string duality. Physical Review Letters 100, 012301.
Friess, JJ; Gubser, SS; Michalogiorgakis, G; Pufu, SS (2007). Expanding plasmas and quasinormal modes of anti-de Sitter black holes. Journal of High Energy Physics 04, 080.
Gubser, SS (2007). Comparing the drag force on heavy quarks in N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory and QCD. Physical Review D 76 126003.
Gubser, SS (2006). Drag force in AdS/CFT. Physical Review D 74, 126005.
If you want to learn more about Steven Gubser's research, visit his website.
Christine Jacobs-Wagner
Age: 39
Position: Maxine F. Singer Associate Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Yale University
Category: Cell & Molecular Biology
Selected Publications
Lam, H; Schofield, WB; Jacobs-Wagner, C (2006). A landmark protein essential for establishing and perpetuating the polarity of a bacterial cell. Cell 124 (5): 1011-1023.
Matroule, JY; Lam, H; Burnette, DT; Jacobs-Wagner, C (2004). Cytokinesis monitoring during development: Rapid pole-to-pole shuttling of a signaling protein by localized kinase and phosphatase in Caulobacter. Cell 118 (5): 579-590.
Lam, H; Matroule, JY; Jacobs-Wagner, C (2003). The asymmetric spatial distribution of bacterial signal transduction proteins coordinates cell cycle events. Developmental Cell 5 (1): 149-159.
Ausmees, N; Kuhn, JR; Jacobs-Wagner, C (2003). The bacterial cytoskeleton: An intermediate filament-like function. Cell 115 (6): 705-713.
If you want to learn more about Christine Jacobs-Wagner's research, visit her lab website.
Eric Lai
Age: 36
Position: Assistant Member, Department of Developmental Biology, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Category: Developmental Biology
Selected Publications
Okamura, K; Balla, S; Martin, R; Liu, N; Lai, EC (2008). Two distinct mechanisms generate endogenous siRNAs from bidirectional transcription in Drosophila. Nature Structural and Molecular Biology 15: 581-590.
Chung, WJ; Okamura, K; Martin, R; Lai, EC (2008). Endogenous RNA interference provides a somatic defense against Drosophila transposons. Current Biology 18: 795-802.
Okamura, K; Chung, WJ; Ruby, JG; Guo, H; Bartel, DP; Lai, EC (2008). The Drosophila hairpin RNA pathway generates endogenous siRNAs. Nature 453: 803-806.
Okamura, K; Phillips, MD; Tyler, D; Duan, H; Chou, YT; Lai, EC (2008). The regulatory activity of microRNA* species has substantial influence on microRNA and 3′ UTR evolution. Nature Structural and Molecular Biology 15: 354-363.
If you want to learn more about Eric Lai's research, visit his lab website.
Laura Landweber
Age: 40
Position: Associate Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University
Category: Evolutionary Biology
Selected Publications
Nowacki, M; Vijayan, V; Zhou, Y; Schotanus, K; Doak, TG; Landweber, LF (2008). RNA-mediated epigenetic programming of a genome-rearrangement pathway. Nature 451: 153-58.
Chang, WJ; Bryson, PD; Liang, H; Shin, MK; Landweber, LF (2005). The evolutionary origin of a complex scrambled gene. PNAS 102 (42): 15149-15154.
Lozupone, CA; Knight, RD; Landweber, LF (2001). The molecular basis of nuclear genetic code change in ciliates. Current Biology 11 (2): 65-74.
Faulhammer, D; Cukras, AR; Lipton, RJ; Landweber, LF (2000). Molecular computation: RNA solutions to chess problems. PNAS 97 (4): 1385-1389.
If you want to learn more about Laura Landweber's research, visit her lab website.
Thomas Muir
Age: 40
Position: Richard E. Salomon Family Professor and Head of the Selma and Lawrence Ruben Laboratory, Director of the Pels Family Center for Chemistry, Biochemistry and Structural Biology, Rockefeller University
Category: Chemistry
Selected Publications
McGinty, RK; Kim, J; Chatterjee, C; Roeder, RG; Muir, TW (2008). Chemically ubiquitylated histone H2B stimulates hDot1L-mediated intranucleosomal methylation. Nature 453: 812-816.
Schwartz, EC; Saez, L; Young, MW; Muir, TW (2007). Post-translational enzyme activation in an animal via optimized conditional protein splicing. Nature Chemical Biology 3 (1): 50-54.
Mayville, P; Ji, GY; Beavis, R; Yang, HM; Goger, M; Novick, RP; Muir, TW (1999). Structure-activity analysis of synthetic autoinducing thiolactone peptides from Staphylococcus aureus responsible for virulence. PNAS 96 (4): 1218-1223.
Muir, TW; Sondhi, D; Cole, PA (1998). Expressed protein ligation: A general method for protein engineering. PNAS 95 (12):6705-6710.
If you want to learn more about Thomas Muir's research, visit his lab website.
Ken Shepard
Age: 42
Position: Professor of Electrical Engineering, Columbia University
Category: Engineering
Selected Publications
Rajapandian, S; Shepard, KL; Hazucha, P; Karnik, T (2006). High-voltage power delivery through charge recycling. IEEE Journal of Solid-Sate Circuits 41 (6): 1400-1410.
Chan, SC; Shepard, KL; Restle, PJ (2006) Distributed differential oscillators for global clock networks. IEEE Journal of Solid-Sate Circuits 41 (9):2083-2094.
Patounakis, G; Shepard, KL; Levicky, R (2006). Active CMOS array sensor for time-resolved fluorescence detection. IEEE Journal of Solid-Sate Circuits 41 (11): 2521-2530.
If you want to learn more about Ken Shepard's research, visit his lab website.
Saeed Tavazoie
Age: 39
Position: Associate Professor of Molecular Biology and Member of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University
Category: Genetics & Genomics
Selected Publications
Tagkopoulos, I., Liu, Y., Tavazoie, S. (2008). Predictive behavior within microbial genetic networks. Science 320:1313-1317.
Elemento, O; Slonim, N; Tavazoie, S (2007). A universal framework for regulatory element discovery across all genomes and data types. Molecular Cell 28: 337-350.
Beer, MA; Tavazoie, S (2004) Predicting gene expression from sequence. Cell 117 (2): 185-198.
Kurdistani, SK; Tavazoie, S; Grunstein, M (2004). Mapping global histone acetylation patterns to gene expression. Cell 117 (6): 721-733.
If you want to learn more about Saeed Tavazoie's research, visit his lab website.
POSTDOCTORAL
Alexei Aravin
Age: 31
Position: Senior Fellow, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
PI: Gregory Hannon
Category: Developmental Biology
Selected Publications
Tam, O; Aravin, A; Stein, P; Girard, A; Murchison, E; Cheloufi, S; Hodges, E; Anger, M; Sachidanandam, R; Schultz, R; Hannon, G (2008). Pseudogene-derived small interfering RNAs regulate gene expression in mouse oocytes. Nature 453: 534-538.
Aravin, AA; Sachidanandam, R; Girard, A; Fejes-Toth, K; Hannon, GJ (2007). Developmentally regulated piRNA clusters implicate MILI in transposon control. Science 316 (5825): 744-747.
Brennecke, J; Aravin, A; Stark, A; Dus, M; Kellis, M; Sachidanandam, R; Hannon, G (2007). Discrete small RNA-generating loci as master regulators of transposon activity in Drosophila. Cell 128 (6): 1089-1103.
Aravin, A; Gaidatzis, D; Pfeffer, S; Lagos-Quintana, M; Landgraf, P; Iovino, N; Morris, P; Brownstein, MJ; Kuramochi-Miyagawa, S; Nakano, T; Chien, MC; Russo, JJ; Ju, JY; Sheridan, R; Sander, C; Zavolan, M; Tuschl, T (2006). A novel class of small RNAs bind to MILI protein in mouse testes. Nature 442 (7099): 203-207.
Matthew Evans
Age: 35
Position: Postdoctoral Associate, Center for the Study of Hepatitis C, Rockefeller University
PI: Charles M. Rice
Category: Microbiology, Immunology & Infectious Diseases
Selected Publications
Evans, MJ; von Hahn, T; Tscherne, DM; Syder, AJ; Panis, M; Wolk, B; Hatziioannou, T; McKeating, JA; Bieniasz, PD; Rice, CM (2007). Claudin-1 is a hepatitis C virus co-receptor required for a late step in entry. Nature 446 (7137): 801-805.
Tscherne, DM; Jones, CT; Evans, MJ; Lindenbach, BD; McKeating, JA; Rice, CM (2006). Time- and temperature-dependent activation of hepatitis C virus for low-pH-triggered entry. Journal of Virology 80 (4): 1734-1741.
Lindenbach, BD; Evans, MJ; Syder, AJ; Wolk, B; Tellinghuisen, TL; Liu, CC; Maruyama, T; Hynes, RO; Burton, DR; McKeating, JA; Rice, CM (2005). Complete replication of hepatitis C virus in cell culture. Science 309 (5734): 623-626.
Evans, MJ; Rice, CM; Goff, SP (2004). Phosphorylation of hepatitis C virus nonstructural protein 5A modulates its protein interactions and viral RNA replication. PNAS 101 (35): 13038-13043.
If you want to learn more about Matthew Evan's research, visit the Laboratory of Virology and Infectious Disease website.
Valerie Horsley
Age: 31
Position: Postdoctoral Fellow, Rockefeller University
PI: Elaine Fuchs
Category: Developmental Biology
Selected Publications
Horsley, V; Aliprantis, AO; Polak, L; Glimcher, LH; Fuchs, E (2008). NFATc1 balances quiescence and proliferation of skin stem cells. Cell 132 (2): 299-310.
Horsley, V; O'Carroll, D; Tooze, R; Ohinata, Y; Saitou, M; Obukhanych, T; Nussenzweig, M; Tarakhovsky, A; Fuchs, E (2006). Blimp1 defines a progenitor population that governs cellular input to the sebaceous gland. Cell 126 (3): 597-609.
If you want to learn more about Valerie Horsley's research, visit the Laboratory of Mammalian Cell Biology and Development website.
Andrew Houck
Age: 28
Position: Postdoctoral Associate, Department of Applied Physics, Yale University
PI: Robert Schoelkopf
Category: Physics
Selected Publications
Houck, AA; Schuster, DI; Gambetta, JM; Schreier, JA; Johnson, BR; Chow, JM; Frunzio, L; Majer, J; Devoret, MH; Girvin, SM; Schoelkopf, RJ (2007). Generating single microwave photons in a circuit. Nature 449: 328-331.
Majer, J; Chow, JM; Gambetta, JM; Koch, J; Johnson, BR; Schreier, JA; Frunzio, L; Schuster, DI; Houck, AA; Wallraff, A; Blais, A; Devoret, MH; Girvin, SM; Schoelkopf, RJ (2007). Coupling superconducting qubits via a cavity bus. Nature 449 (7161): 443-447.
Koch, J; Yu, TM; Gambetta, J; Houck, AA; Schuster, DI; Majer, J; Blais, A; Devoret, MH; Girvin, SM; Schoelkopf, RJ (2007) Charge-insensitive qubit design derived from the Cooper pair box. Physical Review A 76 042319.
Schuster, DI; Houck, AA; Schreier, JA; Wallraff, A; Gambetta, JM; Blais, A; Frunzio, L; Majer, J; Johnson, B; Devoret, MH; Girvin, SM; Schoelkopf, RJ (2007). Resolving photon number states in a superconducting circuit. Nature 445 (7127): 515-518.
If you want to learn more about Andrew Houck's research, visit the Schoelkopf Lab website.
Andreas Keller
Age: 35
Position: Research Associate, Rockefeller University
PI: Leslie Vosshall
Category: Neuroscience
Selected Publications
Keller, A; Zhuang, HY; Chi, QY; Vosshall, LB; Matsunami, H (2007). Genetic variation in a human odorant receptor alters odour perception. Nature 449 (7161): 468-72.
Keller, A; Vosshall, LB (2007). Influence of odorant receptor repertoire on odor perception in humans and fruit flies. PNAS 104 (13): 5614-5619.
Keller, A; Vosshall, LB (2004). A psychophysical test of the vibration theory of olfaction. Nature Neuroscience 7 (4): 337-338.
If you want to learn more about Andreas Keller's research, visit the Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behavior website.
Andrey Pisarev
Age: 30
Position: Research Scientist, Department of Microbiology & Immunology, SUNY Downstate Medical Center
PI: Tatyana V. Pestova
Category: Cell & Molecular Biology
Selected Publications
Pisarev, AV; Hellen, CUT; Pestova, TV (2007). Recycling of eukaryotic posttermination ribosomal complexes. Cell 131: 286-299.
Alkalaeva, EZ; Pisarev, AV; Frolova, LY; Kisselev, LL; Pestova, TV (2006). In vitro reconstitution of eukaryotic translation reveals cooperativity between release factors eRF1 and eRF3. Cell 125 (6): 1125-1136.
Pisareva, VP; Pisarev, AV; Hellen, CUT; Rodnina, MV; Pestova, TV (2006). Kinetic analysis of interaction of eukaryotic release factor 3 with guanine nucleotides. Journal of Biological Chemistry 281 (52): 40224-40235.
Pisarev, AV; Kolupaeva, VG; Pisareva, VP; Merrick, WC; Hellen, CUT; Pestova, TV (2006). Specific functional interactions of nucleotides at key (-)3 and (+)4 positions flanking the initiation codon with components of the mammalian 48S translation initiation complex. Genes & Development 20 (5): 624-636.
Shobha Vasudevan
Age: 34
Position: Postdoctoral Fellow, Yale University
PI: Joan A. Steitz
Category: Cell & Molecular Biology
Selected Publications
Vasudevan, S; Tong, YC; Steitz, JA (2008). Cell-cycle control of microRNA-mediated translation regulation. Cell Cycle 7 (11): 1545-1549.
Vasudevan, S; Tong, YC; Steitz, JA (2007). Switching from repression to activation: MicroRNAs can up-regulate translation. Science 318 (5858): 1931-1934.
Vasudevan, S; Steitz, JA (2007). AU-rich-element-mediated upregulation of translation by FXR1 and argonaute 2. Cell 128 (6): 1105-1118.
Vasudevan, S; Seli, E; Steitz, JA (2006). Metazoan oocyte and early embryo development program: a progression through translation regulatory cascades. Genes & Development 20 (2): 138-146.
If you want to learn more about Shobha Vasudevan's research, visit the Steitz Lab website.
RSS