Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Three MIT professors win NIH Pioneer Awards

By Mass High Tech Staff

The National Institutes of Health has recognized the biomedical contributions of three MIT faculty members by awarding them with NIH Pioneer Awards. MIT professors Alexander van Oudenaarden, Aviv Regev and Alice Y. Ting were each awarded $2.5 million over five years.

The fifth annual Pioneer Awards honors scientific researchers, at any point in their career, who have used bold, creative ideas and approaches to address biomedical and behavioral research challenges. Previous NIH Pioneer Award winners from MIT include 2007 winner Emery Brown, of the Harvard-MIT division of health sciences and technology, and the department of brain and cognitive sciences; and 2006 winner Arup K. Chakraborty, professor of chemical engineering, chemistry and biological engineering.

Biomedical engineering professor Van Oudenaarden is researching random variables in gene expression during cell development.

An assistant professor of biology and Broad Institute affiliate, Regev is studying development, disease and evolution effects on cells’ regulatory networks.

And associate professor of chemistry, Ting is researching technology to “image and study proteins in living cells.”