A New Prize: March of Dimes Award to Dr. Brinster

Dr. Ralph Brinster, Richard King Mellon Professor of Reproductive Physiology in the School of Veterinary Medicine, is the co-recipient (with Dr. Beatrice Mintz of Fox Chase Cancer Center), of the first annual March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology.

Dr. Brinster and Dr. Mintz share a $100,000 prize, which was presented at an April 12 ceremony in Manhattan, attended by Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the granddaughter of the President who was a founder of the March of Dimes, and by Francoise Gilot, the widow of Dr. Jonas Salk, in whose name the award was created.

Through concepts and techniques pioneered independently by the two scientists, a March of Dimes spokesperson said, a "transgenic" mouse was created and is being used to discover how genes are "turned on and off" during the course of normal and abnmormal embryonic development. The mice produce models for many human disorders, including birth defects, cancer and heart disease. They also guide scientists to the location of genes that control certain traits, such as inherited susceptibility to diabetes.


Almanac

Volume 42 Number 31
May 7, 1996


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