2010 - 2001 Awardees

Thomas J. Kelly, MD, Ph.D. Thomas J. Kelly is director of the Sloan-Kettering Institute at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where he oversees a broad research program focused on the causes, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer. Prior to joining Sloan-Kettering in 2002, Dr. Kelly was professor and director of the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the founding director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences.

Dr. Kelly received his PhD in biophysics from the Johns Hopkins University and his MD from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. After postdoctoral studies at Johns Hopkins, where he determined the DNA sequences recognized by restriction enzymes, he conducted research on animal viruses at the National Institutes of Health as a member of the U.S. Public Health Service. He joined the faculty of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1972. Dr. Kelly’s research has focused on how the genome is duplicated during the cell cycle, with particular emphasis on the ways DNA replication is initiated and controlled. Dr. Kelly’s laboratory developed the first cell-free systems for studying the biochemistry of DNA replication in human cells.

Dr. Kelly was the co-recipient (with Bruce Stillman) of the 2004 Alfred P. Sloan Jr. Prize of the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Philosophical Society.

Dr. Kelly has served on many national advisory boards and is currently a member of the Advisory Committee to the Director, NIH, and the Scientific Management Review Board, NIH.

Victor Ambros, PhD, grew up in Vermont and graduated from MIT in 1975. He did his graduate research (1976–1979) with David Baltimore at MIT, studying poliovirus genome structure and replication. He began to study the genetic pathways controlling developmental timing in the nematode C. elegans as a postdoc in H. Robert Horvitz's lab at MIT and continued those studies while on the faculty of Harvard (1984–1992), Dartmouth (1992–2007), and the University of Massachusetts Medical School (2008–present). In 1993, he and co-workers Rosalind Lee and Rhonda Feinbaum identified the first microRNA, the product of the heterochronic gene lin-4 in C. elegans. Currently, the chief research interest of the Ambros lab is the roles of microRNA-mediated regulatory pathways in animal development and human disease.

F. Ulrich Hartl studied medicine at Heidelberg University. After receiving his MD in 1982 and his doctoral degree in biochemistry in 1985 he moved to the laboratory of Walter Neupert in Munich, where he worked on the mechanism of protein transport into mitochondria, first as a postdoctoral fellow and from 1987 to 1991 as a research group leader. In 1988 he initiated the work on molecular chaperones and demonstrated, collaboratively with A. Horwich, the basic role of chaperones in assisting protein folding. His work in Walter Neupert’s department was interrupted by a stint in William Wickner’s laboratory at UCLA (1989–1990), where he worked on the mechanism of bacterial protein export. After returning to Munich he received his Habilitation in Biochemistry and soon after accepted an offer from Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York to join the newly founded department of James Rothman as an associate member.

From 1991 to 1997, Dr. Hartl investigated the mechanisms of protein-folding in the bacterial and eukaryotic cytosol. He reconstituted the pathway of chaperone-assisted folding in which the Hsp70 and the GroEL chaperone systems cooperate and discovered that GroEL and its co-factor GroES provide a nano-cage for single protein molecules to fold unimpaired by aggregation. In 1993 Hartl was promoted to member with tenure, and in 1994 he became an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In 1997 he returned to Munich to head the Department of Cellular Biochemistry at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (MPIB). At MPIB Dr. Hartl continues to investigate the mechanisms of cellular protein-folding using a range of methods from cell biology, biochemistry, and structural biology. In addition, he initiated research into neurodegenerative diseases caused by protein misfolding and aggregation. This work led to the finding that chaperones can effectively inhibit the formation of amyloid aggregates associated with neurodegeneration. Much of this work was done in collaboration with Manajit Hayer-Hartl.

Joseph G. Gall received the BS degree in zoology from Yale University in early 1949 then directly entered Yale's graduate program zoology. He completed his PhD in 1952, working with the Drosophila geneticist and developmental biologist Donald F. Poulson. He took a teaching position in the zoology department at the University of Minnesota, where he remained until 1963. In the fall of 1963 he returned to Yale as a visiting professor in what was then the biology department, after the fusion of zoology and botany, and later became professor of biology with a joint appointment in molecular biophysics and biochemistry. Dr. Gall remained at Yale for 20 years, from 1963 to1983; during the last few years he held the Ross G. Harrison Chair in Biology. In 1983 he joined the embryology department of the Carnegie Institution in Baltimore as a staff member. In 1984 he was appointed American Cancer Society Professor of Developmental Genetics, a lifetime appointment.

Dr. Gall has been an active member of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) since its inception in 1960, serving as president 1967 – 68 and as a member of its council and several committees at various times.

Dr. Gall's long-term research interests have been in the structure and function of the cell, particularly the nucleus. His earliest studies involved the giant “lampbrush” chromosomes found in oocytes of frogs and salamanders. These are the largest known chromosomes and permit various observations and manipulations that are difficult or impossible with smaller chromosomes. Among his more important findings, made at a time when the site of cellular RNA synthesis was still unclear (late 1950s, early 1960s), was that cellular RNA synthesis occurs on loops of DNA that extend out from the axis of the chromosome. Studies on the kinetics of DNase digestion showed that the chromosome consists of a single extremely long DNA molecule. Electron microscopic studies he carried out at about the same time on the nuclear envelope established the existence of the nuclear pore complex and its eight-fold symmetry. Other studies on centrioles clarified aspects of their replication during the cell cycle.

After moving to Yale, Dr. Gall began studies on ribosomal RNA (rRNA) and the genes that code for it (rDNA). In 1967–68, through a combination of biochemical and cytological observations, he demonstrated that these genes are able to leave the chromosome and replicate independently during the early stages of oocyte formation in amphibians and other animals. This phenomenon of gene amplification was independently discovered by Igor Dawid and Donald Brown of the Carnegie Institution. At about the same time, a former postdoctoral student of Dr. Gall’s, Oscar Miller, demonstrated the activity of the amplified genes in a set of electron microscopic observations.

The studies on gene amplification were followed almost immediately by development of the technique of in situ hybridization, in collaboration with Dr. Gall’s graduate students Mary Lou Pardue and Susan Gerbi. This technique allowed the identification of specific DNA or RNA sequences at the cellular or subcellular level. Their original technique used radioactive probes. The procedure was later modified by others to use fluorescent probes, which permit even finer localization and simultaneous use of multiple probes. In situ hybridization is now one of the most widely used cytological techniques. It permits localization of genes to specific chromosome regions and of RNA sequences to specific cells or groups of cells.

Among several important observations Dr. Gall’s team made with the in situ hybridization technique was that the heterochromatic regions of chromosomes consist of simple sequences called “satellite” DNA. They also showed how in situ hybridization could be used with the giant chromosomes of Diptera for precise gene localization. A few years later, gene cloning made numerous sequences available for mapping studies.

Dr. Gall’s interest in rDNA amplification during oocyte formation led him to investigate the similar phenomenon he discovered in the ciliated protozoan Tetrahymena. Work on this organism led to the demonstration that the rDNA genes exist as free molecules in the macronucleus. A postdoctoral fellow, Elizabeth Blackburn, found that the ends of these molecules had a unique structure consisting of a hexanucleotide repeat GGGGTT. Later studies by Blackburn and others established that this repeat, or very similar ones, are found at the ends or telomeres of chromosomes from nearly every type of animal and plant investigated. The in situ hybridization technique was valuable in making this determination.

In recent years, the focus of Dr. Gall’s research has been the organization of transcription in the nucleus. He has studied the small nuclear RNAs (snRNAs), which are known to play important roles in the processing of all types of messenger RNA (mRNA) and ribosomal RNA (rRNA). His lab is concentrating on several nuclear organelles that contain snRNAs, including the nucleolus, Cajal bodies, and nuclear speckles. Their most recent studies suggest that Cajal bodies may be sites for preassembly and/or modification of macromoleuclar complexes that carry out nuclear transcription and RNA processing.

The research findings from Dr. Gall’s laboratory have been reported in 150 articles in various scientific journals. His research has been combined with his long-standing interest in the history of biology, particularly cell biology and microscopy. He has collected early books in these areas and in 1996 published a book, “Views of the Cell: A Pictorial History.” The book brings together 60 historical images and their descriptions that Dr. Gall originally prepared as covers for Molecular Biology of the Cell, the official journal of the American Society for Cell Biology. In 2001, Dr. Gall co-edited with J. Richard McIntosh a book of readings in cell biology titled “Landmark Papers in Cell Biology,” published jointly by the American Society for Cell Biology and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.

Tony Hunter received his PhD in biochemistry from the University of Cambridge, England, for his research on mammalian protein synthesis. He is an American Cancer Society research professor and director of the Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. He is also an adjunct professor in the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of California at San Diego. His research focuses on how cells regulate their growth and division and on how mutations in genes that regulate growth lead to cancer.

In 1979, Dr. Hunter's lab discovered that a phosphate can be attached to tyrosine residues in proteins, a discovery that enabled researchers to study tyrosine kinases and their functions in signal transduction, cell growth and development, and cancer and other diseases. Dr. Hunter's and Dr. Pawson's work has led to the development of drugs for halting cancer cell proliferation and has potential for other significant therapies.

Dr. Hunter's current research interests include the tyrosine kinases of the Src and growth factor receptor families, as well as the signaling pathways downstream of these tyrosine kinases that regulate cell growth, cell migration, and differentiation. His group also studies the cyclin-dependent protein kinases and other protein kinases that regulate progression through the cell cycle, how protein ubiquitination and degradation is used as a means of regulating signaling pathways and the cell cycle, and protein trafficking.

He is on the editorial boards of several journals, including Cell, Molecular Cell, the EMBO Journal and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and has received many awards for his research, including a National Cancer Institute Outstanding Investigator Award.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, an associate member of the European Molecular Biology Organization, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences, and a member of the Institute of Medicine.