Cryo-EM pioneers win Wiley prize

Cryo-electron microscopy pioneers have won the 16th Annual Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences.

Joachim Frank, Richard Henderson and Marin van Heel have been recognised for electron microscopy developments that are transforming structural studies of biological molecules and complexes.

As Dr Günter Blobel, Chairman of the awards jury for the Wiley Prize, highlights: “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.”

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.

“We are pleased to highlight the impact that cryo-electron microscopy has had in advancing knowledge of molecular structure and resulting cellular functions,” says Deborah E. Wiley, Chair of the Wiley Foundation.

“The Wiley Foundation honors leadership and innovation in the development of techniques that greatly advance scientific discovery,” she adds. “The work of the 2017 Wiley Prize recipients Joachim Frank, Richard Henderson, and Marin van Heel truly upholds this mission.”

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.

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.