David Bartel honored by French academy
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (June 15, 2005) — Whitehead
Institute Member David
Bartel is one of two scientists to receive the annual
Louis-D. Prize from the Institut de France, an organization
similar in many respects to the National Academy of
Sciences in the United States. He will receive the award
for 750,000 euros at a ceremony in Paris on June 15,
along with fellow recipient Ronald Plasterk of the Netherlands
Institute for Developmental Biology.
Bartel's research has recently been highlighted by
the discovery of the abundance of microRNAs, molecules
that play an active role in regulating the genomes of
both plants and mammals by interrupting a gene’s
ability to produce protein. It wasn't until 2000 that
scientists were aware that these molecules existed in
humans. Now, as shown in a recent Cell paper, Bartel
and his colleagues have found that more than one third
of the human genes are at least partially controlled
by microRNAs. And, Bartel says, that number is a conservative
estimate. This starkly contradicts the long-held assumption
that RNA is little more than a passive intermediary
between DNA and protein.
This area of research is also exciting due to its potential
therapeutic applications. For example, using a technique
known as RNA interference, or RNAi, researchers are
shutting off genes by delivering into cells artificial
microRNA-like molecules called short interfering RNAs
(siRNAs). Learning more about how microRNAs operate
in human cells should help scientists to understand
how best to exploit siRNAs for treating disease.
The Institut de France has 390 members and comprises
five academies: the French Academy, the Academy of Literature,
the Academy of Sciences, the Academy of the Fine Arts,
and the Academy of Ethics and Political Science. The
French Academy, the oldest of the five, was founded
in 1635. The Institut’s mission is to promote
and fund advances in arts and sciences.
Past recipients of the Louis-D. Prize include Margaret
Pericak-Vance, director of the Duke University Center
for Human Genetics; Stanislas Dehaene of the Institut
National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale
(INSERM, the French equivalent of the National Institutes
of Health in the U.S.); and Hartmut Wekerle of the Max
Planck Institute of Neurobiology.
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