Q&As in 2014

Kazutoshi Mori, Professor at Kyoto University, shares the 2014 Lasker Basic Medical Research Award with Peter Walter, Professor at the University of California, San Francisco. Walter and Mori are honored for their work identifying core components of the unfolded protein response (UPR). Mori made his first major discovery in this area—identification of the IRE1 component of the UPR—in 1993, while he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

Alim Louis Benabid, Chairman of the Board at Clinatec Institute in Grenoble, France shares the 2014 Lasker∼DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award with Mahlon DeLong, Professor at Emory University School of Medicine. DeLong and Benabid are honored for their work that led to the development of deep brain stimulation, a therapy that has helped relieve symptoms in thousands of patients with advanced Parkinson's disease.

Mary-Claire King, American Cancer Society Professor of Medicine and Genome Sciences at the University of Washington, Seattle, is recognized with the 2014 Lasker∼Koshland Special Achievement Award for her wide range of contributions to biology and medicine as well as human rights. King's development of mathematical models of genetics and discovery of the role that a single gene locus, BRCA1, has in hereditary breast cancer have had wide influence, and she has worked tirelessly to apply genetics to reunite missing persons, such as the 'lost children' of Argentina, with their families.

Mahlon DeLong, Professor at Emory University School of Medicine, shares the 2014 Lasker∼DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award with Alim Louis Benabid, Chairman of the Board at Clinatec Institute in Grenoble, France. DeLong and Benabid are honored for their work that led to the development of deep brain stimulation, a therapy that has helped relieve symptoms in thousands of patients with advanced Parkinson's disease.

Peter Walter, Professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and Kazutoshi Mori, Professor at Kyoto University, share the 2014 Lasker Basic Medical Research Award for their work that resulted in identification of key components of the unfolded protein response (UPR). Walter identified the IRE1 component of the UPR in 1993, shortly after starting his laboratory at UCSF.

Last month, Martin Stratmann began a six-year term as president of the Munich-based Max Planck Society. Stratmann spoke with David Levine about his vision for the society and about what the change of guard will mean for biomedical research.

In April, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) launched the Biological Technologies Office. The man picked to lead the BTO is Geoffrey Ling, a physician-scientist with training in neurology and pharmacology who spent 27 years in the US Army Medical Corps. Ling spoke with Brendan Borrell about what the BTO will mean for the medical research community.

 Last month, Genentech entered a five-year partnership with PatientsLikeMe to mine the online patient network’s database of real-world experiences from more than 250,000 members with 2,000 different conditions. At the helm of PatientsLikeMe is Jamie Heywood, a mechanical engineer by training who devised the idea for the platform ten years ago when he noticed some striking similarities between the information asked of online dating websites and clinical trial portals. Nicholette Zeliadt spoke to Heywood about what this new partnership will mean for open-participation research.

 In July, Victor Dzau will start his six-year term as president of the US Institute of Medicine (IOM). A cardiologist and researcher by training, Dzau currently serves as chancellor for health affairs at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Roxanne Khamsi spoke with Dzau about his vision for the IOM.

On 29 January, Johnson & Johnson announced that it will make all of its clinical trial data available through an academic clearinghouse for scientific information known as the Yale University Open Data Access (YODA) project. At the helm of YODA is Harlan Krumholz, a physician-scientist who for almost two decades has led the Yale-New Haven Hospital Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation. Krumholz spoke with Roxanne Khamsi about how greater access to data is a boon for medicine.

 In October, Jeremy Farrar took the helm of the UK-based Wellcome Trust, the second largest nongovernmental funder of biomedical research in the world. The Wellcome Trust, with its £16 billion endowment, is far more than just an enabler of biomedical research. It is also a key player in wider science policy debates. Farrar sat down with Daniel Cressey to discuss his Trust issues.

On 27 January, the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) will welcome George Koob as its new permanent head. A neurobiologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, for the past 30 years, Koob, 66, made his name both in the study of alcoholism and in addiction to other substances. His work has long been funded by both NIAAA and NIDA. Elie Dolgin spoke with Koob about what he thinks sets alcohol research apart.