Dear Colleagues:

We are delighted to announce that Ron Vale, PhD, has been honored with the 2012 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. This prestigious award is sometimes referred to as the “American Nobel”, since many recipients have subsequently won a Nobel Prize, including UCSF’s J. Michael Bishop, Harold Varmus, Stanley Prusiner and Elizabeth Blackburn.

Ron Vale, who joined UCSF in 1987, is a professor and vice chair in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. He shares the award with Michael Sheetz, PhD, of Columbia University and James Spudich, PhD, of Stanford University.

The important discoveries for which Dr. Vale and his colleagues are being recognized have illuminated critical aspects of cellular motion – how cells regulate transportation. Among their discoveries was the protein kinesin, a “machine” that moves “cargo” through the living cell. Understanding the mechanisms of motion is a vital step toward investigating new areas of drug development for diseases such as cardiomyopathies and neuropathies that are linked to problems with motor proteins.

Additional information will be available at UCSF.edu shortly.

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Vale and his team on this exceptional honor!

Sincerely,

Susan Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH
Chancellor
Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Distinguished Professor

Sam Hawgood, MBBS
Dean, School of Medicine

Article Date:
September 10, 2012