ST. THOMAS, U.S. Virgin Islands, June 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading researcher Robert H. Waterston, a pioneer in the field of genomics and an advocate for the free and rapid release of genomic information, has been selected by an international panel of experts to receive the 2005 Genetics Prize of the Peter Gruber Foundation. Dr. Waterston is the Chairman, Department of Genomic Sciences, University of Washington and its William H. Gates III Endowed Chair in Biomedical Sciences.
The Foundation annually presents its gold medal and a $200,000 unrestricted cash award to an outstanding scientist who has contributed to fundamental advances in the field of genetics. This year's prize will be presented on October 26 at the meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The official citation reads:
"The Genetics Prize of The Peter Gruber Foundation is hereby proudly presented to Robert Hugh Waterston, M.D., Ph.D., a pioneer in the field of genomics. By mapping and then helping determine the sequences of the genomes of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and the human, Dr. Waterston played a pivotal role in the Human Genome Project. He conceptualized and executed a broad variety of large-scale genomic investigations that made the fruits of genomic sequences immediately useful to all biological scientists. His vigorous and instrumental advocacy of the importance of maintaining complete and free public access to genomic information has been critical for maximizing the use of such information to benefit humanity."
Born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1943, Robert Waterston graduated from Princeton University in 1965 with an engineering degree and received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago. He was one of the first post-doctoral scientists to study the nematode roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans with Sydney Brenner in Cambridge, England. Waterston helped establish C. elegans as a powerful experimental organism. Later, working with John Sulston, he mapped and then determined the sequence of the C. elegans genome - - the first time this feat was accomplished for a multicellular organism.
Waterston's work on large-scale DNA sequencing was critical to the success of the Human Genome Project, where he was the central coordinator for the physical map that formed the framework for the enterprise. More recently, he has led efforts to determine the genome sequences of the nematode Caenorhabditis briggsae, the mouse, and the chimpanzee, as well as to finish the sequencing of the human genome and to define a high-resolution human SNP map. His influence and support were critical to the free release of sequence and map information through the Internet, allowing other scientists to easily access these fundamental data.
"Genes are responsible for heredity, and genomics is the study of all genes in an organism," said Peter Gruber, chairman of the Peter Gruber Foundation. "We are extremely pleased to honor the work of Dr. Robert Waterston. He has been an essential figure in the field of genomics."
The Genetics Prize was established in 2001 and is recognized as the leading international prize in the field.
Further information about the Peter Gruber Foundation and its awards is available from http://www.petergruberfoundation.org .
Peter Gruber Foundation
TheCONTACT: Mary Gregg, The Peter Gruber Foundation, +1-610-617-1624
Web site: http://petergruberfoundation.org/