45th Annual Presentation Ceremony

wednesday / april 6, 2016

award for distinguished work in basic medical science

brandeis university

Lewis S. Rosenstiel

In 1971, the Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Science was established as an expression of the belief that educational institutions have an important role to play in the encourage-ment and development of basic science as it applies to medicine.

Since its inception, Brandeis University has placed great

emphasis on basic science and its relationship to medicine.

With the establishment of the Rosenstiel Basic Medical

Sciences Research Center, made possible by the generosity

of Lewis S. Rosenstiel in 1968, research in basic medical

science at Brandeis has been expanded significantly. The

Rosenstiel award provides a way to extend the center’s

support beyond the campus community.

The award is presented annually at Brandeis based on

recommendations from a panel of outstanding scientists

selected by the Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences

Research Center. Medals are given to scientists for recent

discoveries of particular originality and importance to basic

medical science research. A $25,000 prize (to be shared

in the event of multiple winners) accompanies the award.

The winner of the 2016 Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for

Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Science is Yoshinori

Ohsumi, honorary professor, Frontier Research Center,

Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Ohsumi was chosen for his pioneering discoveries of

molecular pathways and biological functions of protein

degradation by autophagy.

presiding

James E. HaberAbraham and Etta Goodman Professor of Biology Director, Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research CenterBrandeis University

welcome remarks

Lisa M. LynchInterim PresidentBrandeis University

address

Randy SchekmanHHMI Investigator Editor in Chief, eLife Department of Molecular and Cell Biology Li Ka Shing Center University of California, Berkeley 2013 nobel prize in physiology or medicine

Presentation Ceremony

presentation of medallions and awards

James E. Haber

response

Yoshinori OhsumiHonorary Professor Frontier Research Center Tokyo Institute of Technology

Yoshinori OhsumiYoshinori Ohsumi was born in Fukuoka, Japan, in 1945. In 1963, he entered the University of Tokyo, where he studied molecular biology. As a graduate student, Ohsumi studied the initiation mechanism of E. coli ribosome and then action of colicin E3, which inhibits the translation of E. coli cells by binding to its receptor.

In 1974, he enrolled in Rockefeller University to study under G. M. Edelman. Ohsumi first worked on in vitro fertilization in mice before switching to work on the mechanism of initiation of DNA replication using yeast, which introduced him to yeast research.

Ohsumi returned to Japan at the end of 1977 and worked as an assistant professor under Professor Y. Anraku at the Faculty of Science at the University of Tokyo. There Ohsumi took up the study of the yeast vacuolar membrane. By making pure vacuolar mem-brane vesicles, he succeeded in showing various active transport systems and a novel type of proton-pump, v-type ATPase, on the vacuolar membrane.

In 1988, Ohsumi became an associate professor in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo. He opened his own small lab, where he worked on the lytic function of the vacuole. He soon found yeast autophagy by light and electron microscopy. Taking advantage of yeast systems, he performed a genetic screen for autophagy-defective mutants. By the first screen, his group got 15 genes essential for starvation-induced autophagy and began cloning these ATG genes.

2016 Award Winner

Ohsumi later moved to the National Institute for Basic Biology at Okazaki, where he discovered that these ATG proteins consist of six unique set of functional proteins, such as a protein kinase complex, two ubiquitin-like conjugation systems, a PtdIns 3-kinase complex and so on. Doctors T. Yoshimori and N. Mizushima in his lab started studies on ATG genes in mammals and a stu-dent also worked on plant, proving that the ATG system is well conserved in higher eukaryotes. However, until now, Ohsumi has focused on dissection of the molecu-lar mechanism of the ATG proteins in yeast.

In 2009, Ohsumi moved to Tokyo Institute of Technol-ogy. There he continues to elucidate the molecular details of membrane dynamics during autophagosome formation and the physiological relevance of autophagy by combination of cell biology, biochemistry, molecular biology and structural biology.

2016 Speaker

Randy SchekmanRandy Schekman is a professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He studied the enzymology of DNA replication as a graduate student with Arthur Kornberg at Stanford University. His current interest in cellular membranes developed during a postdoctoral period with S. J. Singer at the University of California, San Diego. At Berkeley, he developed a genetic and biochemical approach to the study of eukaryotic membrane traffic.

Among his awards are the Gairdner International Award, the Albert Lasker Award in Basic Medical Research and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which he shared with James Rothman and Thomas Südhof. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He is also a foreign associate of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and the Royal Society of London.

In 1999, he was elected president of the American Society for Cell Biology. In 2002, he was appointed editor-in-chief of the Annual Reviews of Cell and Developmental Biology. From 2006-11, he served as editor-in-chief of the Proceedings of the NAS. In 2011, he was appointed editor-in-chief of an open access journal, eLife, sponsored by the HHMI, Wellcome Trust and the Max Planck Society.

Recent Recipients of the Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Science

2015: For his pioneering work in elucidating the mechanisms of genome rearrangements in immune and cancer cells.

Frederick Alt ’71Professor of Genetics and PediatricsHarvard Medical SchoolDirector, Program in Cellular and Molecular MedicineBoston Children’s Hospital

2014: For their invention of multiphoton fluorescence microscopy and its application to illuminating the function of brain microcircuits.

Winfried DenkDirector, Department of Biomedical OpticsMax Planck Institute for Medical ResearchProfessor of PhysicsHeidelberg UniversityHeidelberg, Germany

David TankHenry L. Hillman Professor in Molecular BiologyCo-Director, Princeton Neuroscience InstitutePrinceton UniversityPrinceton, N.J.

Watt WebbSamuel B. Eckert Professor of Materials Science andEngineering EmeritusCornell UniversityIthaca, N.Y.

2013: For his role in explaining how eukaryotic cells sense and respond to DNA damage.

Stephen J. ElledgeHoward Hughes Medical Institute InvestigatorProfessor of GeneticsHarvard Medical SchoolBoston, Mass.

2012: For his discoveries of the mechanisms by which translational control regulates gene expression and plays roles in cancer, development, memory, innate immunity and virus infections.

Nahum SonenbergProfessorDepartment of BiochemistryMcGill UniversityMontreal, Quebec

2011: For their pioneering work in molecular connections among histones, histone modifications and chromatin struc-ture and their effects on the regulation of gene transcription.

C. David AllisTri-Institutional ProfessorJoy and Jack Fishman ProfessorLaboratory of Chromatin Biology and EpigeneticsThe Rockefeller UniversityNew York, N.Y.

Michael GrunsteinDistinguished Professor, Biological ChemistryDepartment of Biological ChemistryUniversity of California, Los AngelesLos Angeles, Calif.

2010: For their pioneering work in the field of innate immunity.

Ruslan MedzhitovDavid W. Wallace Professor of ImmunobiologyHoward Hughes Medical InstituteYale School of MedicineNew Haven, Conn.

Jules HoffmannProfessor and Distinguished Class Research Director, Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology, CNRSUniversity Louis PasteurStrasbourg, France2011 nobel prize in physiology or medicine

2009: For their pioneering work in the field of stem cell research.

John GurdonProfessor, Department of ZoologyGurdon InstituteUniversity of CambridgeCambridge, England2012 nobel prize in physiology or medicine

Irving WeissmanProfessor of Pathology and Developmental BiologyDirector, Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative

Medicine InstituteStanford School of MedicineStanford, Calif.

Shinya YamanakaProfessor, Kyoto University, JapanSenior Investigator, Gladstone Institute of

Cardiovascular DiseaseL.K. Whittier Foundation Investigator in Stem Cell Biology Professor of Anatomy University of California, San FranciscoSan Francisco, Calif.2012 nobel prize in physiology or medicine

2008: For their elucidation of the molecular machinery that guides proteins into their proper functional shape, there-by preventing the accumulation of protein aggregates that underlie many diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

F. Ulrich HartlDirector, Max Planck Institute of BiochemistryMartinsried, Germany

Arthur L. HorwichInvestigator, Howard Hughes Medical InstituteYale School of MedicineNew Haven, Conn.

2007: For their pioneering work in understanding the mechanisms of gene silencing by epigenetic chromo-some modifications.

Mary F. LyonMammalian Genetics UnitMRC HarwellOxfordshire, England

Davor SolterMax Planck Institute of ImmunobiologyFreiburg, Germany

Azim SuraniGurdon InstituteUniversity of CambridgeCambridge, England

A complete list of awardees may be viewed atwww.brandeis.edu/rosenstiel/rosenstielaward/past.html.

OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS | ©2016 BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY | G078g