HOBOKEN, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Wiley Foundation, part of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (NYSE: JWa and JWb) today announced the 16th annual Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences will be awarded to Joachim Frank, Richard Henderson, and Marin van Heel for pioneering developments in electron microscopy that are transforming structural studies of biological molecules and their complexes.
Dr. Joachim Frank is an HHMI investigator, a Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and of Biological Sciences at Columbia University, and Distinguished Professor of the State University of New York at Albany.
Dr. Richard Henderson is a scientist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. He was Director from 1996 to 2006, and is a fellow of the Royal Society and a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Marin van Heel is a visiting Professor at the National Nanotechnology Laboratory – LNNano/CNPEM, Campinas, Brazil. He is an Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Biology Leiden (NeCEN) and the Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London.
“The 2017 Wiley Prize honors scientists who have developed cryo-electron microscopy to be the most important new tool for establishing atomic structures of large molecular complexes," said Dr. Günter Blobel, Chairman of the awards jury for the Wiley Prize.
First awarded in 2002, The Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences is presented annually to recognize contributions that have opened new fields of research or have advanced concepts in a particular biomedical discipline. Among the many distinguished recipients of the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences, six have gone on to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
“The Wiley Foundation honors leadership and innovation in the development of techniques that greatly advance scientific discovery. The work of the 2017 Wiley Prize recipients Joachim Frank, Richard Henderson, and Marin van Heel truly upholds this mission,” said Deborah E. Wiley, Chair of the Wiley Foundation. “We are pleased to highlight the impact that cryo-electron microscopy has had in advancing knowledge of molecular structure and resulting cellular functions.”
This year’s award of $50,000 will be presented to the winners on April 7, 2017 at the Wiley Prize luncheon at The Rockefeller University. The winners will then deliver an honorary lecture as part of The Rockefeller University Lecture Series. This event will be live streamed via the Current Protocols’ Webinar Series and registration is free.
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Full biographies of Wiley 2017 Prize Winners
Dr. Joachim Frank is an HHMI investigator, a Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and of Biological Sciences at Columbia University, and Distinguished Professor of the State University of New York at Albany. He is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Biophysical Society. In 2014 he received the Franklin Medal in Life Science, bestowed by the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.
Dr. Richard Henderson is a scientist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. He was Director from 1996 to 2006, and is a fellow of the Royal Society and a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Marin van Heel is a visiting Professor at the National Nanotechnology Laboratory – LNNano/CNPEM, Campinas, Brazil. He is an Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Biology Leiden (NeCEN) and the Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London. After studying theoretical optics at the University of Groningen, his PhD thesis marked the beginning of a career in methodology development in structural biology by cryo-EM. He received the Ernst Ruska Prize 1987.
