Professor Azim Surani has been awarded the 36th Annual Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for 2007 for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Science.

The award recognises “his pioneering work on epigenetic gene regulation in mammalian embryos.”

The Lewis S. Rosenstiel award rewards scientists for discoveries of particular originality and importance to basic medical research. The prize was presented to Professor Surani at a recent award symposium at Brandeis University, USA.

Professor Surani's work has led to the discovery of genomic imprinting in mammals. Male and female chromosomes acquire distinctive marks during development of germ cells so that the subsequent activity of some genes during early development and in adults is strictly dependent on their parental origin.

His recent research has also contributed to the discovery of the mechanism responsible for the specification of primordial germ cells during early mammalian development.

The genes of these early germ cells are reprogrammed by the removal of original imprinting marks and a subsequent replacement with new imprints.

These ‘epigenetic' reprogramming mechanisms are of great interest and represent a new stage of biomedical research following the completion of the sequencing of the human genome.

Understanding the reprogramming events in the germ line will allow researchers to influence any adult body cell to behave as a stem cell. Ultimately, understanding these mechanisms could improve the detection and treatment of many human diseases, including cancers.

Professor Surani is the Mary Marshall and Arthur Walton Professor of Physiology and Reproduction at the Wellcome Trust Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute, and the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience.

The Lewis S. Rosenstiel award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Research was founded in 1971 in recognition of the important role that educational institutions play in the encouragement and development of basic science as it applies to medicine.

Other winners of the 2007 Rosenstiel award were Cambridge Alumna Dr Mary Lyon of the MRC Mammalian Genetics Unit, Harwell and Professor Davor Solter of the Max Planck Institute of Immunology, Freiburg, Germany.

Previous winners include a number of Nobel Prize winners and five University of Cambridge scientists: Dr John E. Sulston, Dr Richard Henderson, Dr Peter Nigel Tripp Unwin, Professor Sydney Brenner Dr César Milstein.

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