The Rockefeller University - Awards & Honors

Monday, May 12, 2008




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Gairdner Foundation International Award

The Gairdner Foundation is devoted to the recognition of outstanding achievement in biomedical research worldwide. The awards recognize individuals whose work or contribution constitutes tangible achievement in the field of medical science.

Since 1959, when the first Gairdner Foundation International Awards were presented, 14 recipients have been associated with The Rockefeller University.

In December 1994, Jeffrey M. Friedman, M.D., Ph.D., and his colleagues published a landmark paper in the journal Nature, in which they identified a gene in mice and humans called obese (ob) that codes for a hormone he later named leptin, after the Greek word leptos, for thin. Friedman and colleagues showed that leptin is a hormonal signal made by the body's fat cells that regulates food intake and energy expenditure. Leptin has powerful effects on reproduction, metabolism, other endocrine systems and even immune function. Mice that lack ob, and thus do not produce leptin, are massively obese, weighing as much as three times as their normal littermates.

2007 C. David Allis
2005 Jeffrey M. Friedman
2003 Ralph M. Steinman
2001 Roderick MacKinnon
2000 Robert G. Roeder
1992 Paul Nurse
1986 James E. Darnell
1982 Günter Blobel
1970 Vincent P. Dole
1970 R. Bruce Merrifield
1967 Christian de Duve
1967 George E. Palade
1964 Keith R. Porter
1962 Henry G. Kunkel