Leah Cowen awarded Genzyme Fellowship
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (September 21, 2005) - Leah Cowen,
a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Whitehead Member
Susan Lindquist, has been selected by a Whitehead committee
to receive the Genzyme Postdoctoral Fellowship at Whitehead
Institute. The $90,000 award, sponsored by the Cambridge-based
biotech company, completely funds Cowen's postdoctoral
position-including all expenses-for one year.
Cowen's research focuses on the mechanisms by which
opportunistic microbes, such as pathogenic fungi, evolve.
Such work can form the basis for creating better strategies
for therapeutically combating life-threatening fungal
infections. So far, she's been investigating a particular
protein called Hsp90. This protein is part of a larger
class of heat-shock proteins (HSPs), which are crucial
for responding to environmental stress. Cowen is interested
in how Hsp90 enables fungi to evolve a variety of new
traits, such as drug resistance.
"When Leah came to my lab two years ago, I knew to expect some great things from her," says Lindquist. |
"My future research," says Cowen, "will focus on the
evolution of host-pathogen interactions and Hsp90's
role in this ubiquitous process."
Cowen received her PhD in 2002 from the University
of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. For her thesis she researched
the emergence of drug-resistant fungi using population
genetics, evolutionary biology, and genomics.
In addition to authoring ten research papers, she has
received a number of grants and honors. From 1997 to
1999, and again from 2000 to 2002, she received a postgraduate
scholarship from Canada's Natural Sciences & Engineering
Research Council. From 2000 to 2001 she was awarded
a graduate fellowship from the Mycological Society of
America. And currently her postdoctoral research at
Whitehead is funded in part by the Damon Runyon Cancer
Research Foundation.
"When Leah came to my lab two years ago, I knew to
expect some great things from her," says Lindquist.
"Still, I continue to be amazed by the depth of her
insight and her ability to accomplish very ambitious
experiments with aplomb. She is also very involved in
Whitehead programs-a real asset to our community."
This is the second year that Genzyme has partnered
with Whitehead in this fashion. Last year Konrad Hochedlinger
from the Jaenisch lab received this fellowship.
|
