Category: Creative Research Medal

Creative Research Medal 2006

Jacek Gaertig, Associate Professor of Cellular Biology, studies microtubules, structures found in all cells that – among other things – regulate cell shape and movement. Gaertig and his college Bernard Edde identified a group of enzymes that make structural marks on the surfaces of microtubules that can function as a code that tells different proteins where to bind to microtubules and where to go once they have done this. This enables microtubules to perform a vast array of functions without modifying their basic underlying structure.

Creative Research Medal 2006

Michael Geller, Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy, conducts research in nanomechanics – the study of designing three-dimensional structure on the scale of micrometers and smaller. In collaboration with experimental physicist Andrew Cleland of UC Santa Barbara, Geller has designed a new type of quantum computer that combines superconductors with nanometer-size resonators, which results in unprecedented computing power. This research has lead to an entirely new branch of physics call phonon quantum optics, which involveds control and manipulation of tiny “heat packages” known as phonons. Geller has also developed a new theory for a scanning probe that can be used to identify individual biomolecules like chromosomes.

Creative Research Medal 2005

Daniel Promislow studies the genes and gene networks that affect aging. Most researchers study one or two single genes that influence aging. Dr. Promislow is interested in the possibility that hundreds or even thousands of genes may affect this trait. In the past few years, the new field of systems biology has shown us that complex traits may be influenced by whole networks of interacting genes and proteins. These networks look much like the combination of large hubs and small spokes that make up airline networks. Using yeast as a model, Dr. Promislow discovered that genes that affect aging are more ‘hub-like’ with many more connections than genes not involved in the aging process. His findings are changing the way the scientific community understands and studies aging, providing a new and powerful method to study the many interconnected genetic factors that cause aging.

Allen J. Moore, Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Manchester, calls Dr. Promislow “a pioneer,” while Cynthia Kenyon, a member of the National Academy of the Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, said that his blending of unique and sometimes disparate ideas with state-of-the-art genomics results in “extremely powerful” research. Dr. Promislow is a Rhodes Scholars. In 2004, he was named an Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar in Aging.

Creative Research Medal 2005

Michael P. Winship is one of America’s leading scholars of puritanism. His second book, Making Heretics: Militant Protestantism and Free Grace in Massachusetts, 1636-1641, describes the famous struggles that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during that period, struggles which 19th century historians misleadingly called the “Antinomian Controversy.”

What started out as religious quarrels over assurance of salvation escalated into a political conflict that brought the colony to the brink of extinction. Dr. Winship, through extensive fresh research in both English and American archives, has fundamentally recast this familiar story and its cast of characters. He has thereby reshaped our understanding of early American puritanism and deepened our understanding of its impact, both in America and England.

“He makes plain that the principal contenders and negotiators were not the ones we have long supposed,” wrote Michael Zuckerman, a leading expert on American history at the University of Pennsylvania. “Readers of this remarkable book will never think of American Puritanism as they did… Winship is one of the finest students of American Puritanism, ever.”

Dr. Winship’s new book, The Times and Trials of Anne Hutchinson: Puritans Divided, will be published in May 2005.

Creative Research Medal 2005

Velma McBride Murry examines the associations among family processes, community context and African Americans’ resilience. Her nominators consider her findings to have “important implications for social policies.” She and her colleagues developed, evaluated and implemented the family-focused Strong African American Families (SAAF) intervention program, which promotes research-based parenting skills and community processes to increase adolescents’ self-regulation while reducing their high-risk behavior.

Dr. Murry found that social class and socio-historical context affect sexual activity among African-American teenage girls. She also demonstrated that African-American families help their adolescents develop skills for coping with racism and other stressors. Her study of daily stress and mothers’ psychological functioning has been called “landmark” research.

Dr. Murry currently has $14.8 million in NIH funding and has been PI or Co-PI on grants totaling more than $26 million. She has given presentations at international conferences, authored nine book chapters and been first author on more than 25 refereed journal articles. The National Council on Family Relations gave her the 1999 Ernest Osborne National Teaching Excellence Award and, with her colleagues, the 2003 Reuben Hill Award for outstanding family research.

Creative Research Medal 2005

Edward T. Kipreos studies the cell cycle, a research area that has important implications for understanding cancer. In the past five years, Dr. Kipreos’ research team has published three papers in top-tier journals that report significant breakthroughs in understanding how fundamental cell cycle processes are regulated. These processes include control of DNA replication, chromosome condensation, sorting of chromosomes to daughter cells and initiation of a new cell cycle.

Using the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans as a model system, his research team identified a protein family called cullins that mark other proteins for degradation by attaching a molecular “flag.” Cullins found in C. elegans are essentially the same as those found in humans. In humans, three different cullins are linked to cancer development. The Kipreos group discovered that cullin-4 ensures that a cell’s DNA is not copied more than once in each cell cycle. But when cullin-4 is inactivated, cells repeatedly copy DNA up to 50 times higher than normal. In humans, cells that replicate DNA too often may either become cancerous or die.

The Kipreos lab has been awarded more than $3 million from NIH and the American Cancer Society to support research on the cullin gene family. Their work has been published in top journals including Cell,Nature, Nature Cell Biology and Development and was highlighted in a Nature “News and Views” article.

Creative Research Medal 2005

Ellen L. Neidle explores how bacteria adapt to environmental changes by reversibly altering the amount of their genetic material. This process, known as gene amplification, occurs in all organisms and has implications for understanding cancer, bacterial antibiotic resistance and evolution. Dr. Neidle developed a new experimental approach to study gene amplification by taking advantage of unusual features of the soil-inhabiting bacterium Acinetobacter (ADP1). By exploiting these features, she was able to analyze naturally occurring DNA rearrangements in greater detail than has previously been possible. Dr. Neidle’s studies reveal novel genetic events with significant consequences and center on the capacity of bacteria to acquire new abilities to consume chemical compounds, such as pollutants. Therefore, her work also impacts environmental cleanup efforts.

Dr. Neidle has been praised for the clarity, scale, precision and completeness of her experimental evidence by such luminaries as E. Peter Geiduschek, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a biological sciences professor at the University of California, San Diego. Additionally, Dr. Neidle uses ADP1 as a model system for teaching undergraduates. She mentored 38 undergraduate researchers, in addition to her graduate students, and initiated an NSF-funded program for undergraduate research experiences. Dr.Neidle was awarded one of 19 inaugural Lawton Chiles Fellowships in Biotechnology by the NIH.

Creative Research Medal 2004

Robert J. Maier, GRA-Ramsey Eminent Scholar in Microbial Physiology, is trying to uncover the processes that give bacteria the ability to cause disease in humans. He is a world leader in the study of hydrogenases – a class of enzymes important in bacterial energy metabolism. Dr. Maier’s lab recently discovered that a specific hydrogenase allows a stomach-colonizing bacterium to use hydrogen as its main energy source in culture. The bacterium, called Helicobacter pylori, is associated with peptic ulcers and stomach cancer and is found in half of all humans. Using microelectrodes, his team demonstrated that hydrogen in the stomach lining of living mice is available at levels to support bacterial growth. They also found that bacterial mutants lacking the hydrogen-utilizing enzyme were not able to colonize the stomach very well. This is the first evidence to show a role for hydrogen gas in pathogenesis. By using hydrogen as an energy source, the pathogen avoids competing with its host for nutrients and is able to flourish in a nutrient-poor environment. Since this hydrogenase is not found in humans, it may be a target for new antibiotics or other antimicrobial agents. Dr. Maier’s group now is testing the role of hydrogen gas in other pathogenic bacteria such as those linked to liver cancer, typhoid fever and food poisoning.

Creative Research Medal 2004

William Quinn, Professor of Child and Family Development, developed a program that reduces juvenile crime through prevention and early intervention. He directs the non-profit organization Family Solutions Program (FSP), which helps juvenile first-offenders and their families improve and redirect their lives. Established with grants in 1993, the program has graduated more than 750 at-risk youth and their families in Northeast Georgia. Of those, 24 percent have been charged a second time, compared with 59 percent of those who did not receive FSP. In a comparison between two counties – one that offers FSP and one that places first-offender juveniles on probation – juveniles who receive probation are 6.58 times more likely to commit a second crime. Effective for pre-teens and teens, whites and blacks, and males and females, FSP is now offered in communities in Georgia, Illinois, Kansas and Texas, among others. In multiple-family settings, parents, first-offenders and siblings increase family cohesion, gain emotional support, strengthen home-school partnerships, and develop skills in conflict resolution, decision-making and family cooperation. Dr. Quinn is among the researchers using FSP and other strategies in a multimillion-dollar CDC study aimed at reducing middle school violence. He has presented his research at national and international meetings and has written two textbooks and numerous book chapters and refereed journal articles.