Getting the message: How elucidation of messenger RNA formation empowered RNA therapeutics

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2021 Warren Alpert Foundation Prize Virtual Symposium

In honor of Lynne Maquat and Joan Steitz for the discovery of fundamental pathways and mechanisms that ensure accurate RNA splicing and quality control of gene expression involving RNA.

Lynne Maquat

Lynne Maquat | 2021 Recipient

Dr. Lynne Maquat is the J. Lowell Orbison Endowed Chair, Professor of Biochemistry & Biophysics who holds concomitant appointments in Pediatrics and in Oncology, Founding Director of the Center for RNA Biology, and Founding Chair of Graduate Women in Science at the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY. After obtaining her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and undertaking post-doctoral work at the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research, she joined Roswell Park Cancer Institute before moving to the University of Rochester. Dr. Maquat’s research focuses on the molecular basis of human diseases, with particular interest in mechanisms of mRNA decay. Dr. Maquat discovered nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) in human diseases in 1981 and, subsequently, the exon-junction complex (EJC) and how the EJC marks mRNAs for a quality-control “pioneer” round of protein synthesis. She also discovered Staufen-mediated mRNA decay, which mechanistically competes with NMD and, by so doing, new roles for short interspersed elements and long non-coding RNAs. Additionally, she has defined a new mechanism by which microRNAs are degraded, thereby regulating mRNAs so as to promote the cell cycle.

Maquat is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2006); an elected Member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (2006), the National Academy of Sciences (2011), and the National Academy of Medicine (2017); and a Batsheva de Rothschild Fellow of the Israel Academy of Sciences & Humanities (2012-3). She received the William C. Rose Award from the American Society for Biochemistry & Molecular Biology (2014), a Canada Gairdner International Award (2015), the international RNA Society Lifetime Achievement Award in Service (2010) and in Science (2017), the FASEB Excellence in Science Award (2018), the Vanderbilt Prize in Biomedical Science (2017), the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences (2018), the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Medal (2019), and the Wolf Prize in Medicine (2021). Maquat is well-known for her efforts to promote women in science.

Joan Steitz

Joan Steitz | 2021 Recipient

Joan A. Steitz, Ph.D., is the Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University School of Medicine and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.Steitz earned her BS in chemistry from Antioch College in 1963. Significant findings from her work emerged as early as 1967, when her Harvard PhD thesis with Jim Watson examined the test-tube assembly of a ribonucleic acid (RNA) bacteriophage (antibacterial virus) known as R17.

Steitz spent the next three years in postdoctoral studies at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, where she used early methods for determining the biochemical sequence of RNA to study how ribosomes know where to initiate protein synthesis on bacterial mRNAs. In 1970, she was appointed assistant professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale, becoming full professor in 1978. At Yale, she established a laboratory dedicated to the study of RNA structure and function. In 1979, Steitz and her colleagues described a group of cellular particles called small nuclear ribonucleoproteins (snRNPs), a breakthrough in understanding how RNA is spliced. Subsequently, her laboratory has defined the structures and functions of other noncoding RNPs, such as those that guide the modification of ribosomal RNAs, microRNAs and several produced by transforming herpesviruses.

Steitz is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Philosophical Society, National Academy of Sciences, and Institute of Medicine. Her many honors include the U.S. Steel Foundation Award in Molecular Biology (1982); National Medal of Science (1986); FASEB Excellence in Science Award (2003); RNA Society Lifetime Achievement Award (2004); Gairdner Foundation International Award (2006); Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research (2008) [shared with Elizabeth Blackburn]; Pearl Meister Greengard Prize (2012); La grande médaille 2013 de l'Académie des sciences, Insititut de France; Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London (2014); Herbert Tabor Award, American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (2015); Biopolymers Murray Goodman Memorial Prize, American Chemical Society (2015); William Clyde DeVane Award for Teaching Excellence, Yale University (2016); Jonathan Kraft Prize for Excellence in Cancer Research (2016); ASCB Inaugural Fellow (2016); Lasker~Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science, the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation  (2018); and the Wolf Prize in Medicine (shared with Lynne Maquat and Adrian Krainer). Dr. Steitz has been awarded 19 honorary degrees.

Symposium Program

Each year the recipient(s) of the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize are recognized at a scientific symposium hosted by Harvard Medical School.

Opening Remarks

George Q. Daley, MD, PhD

Dean of Harvard Medical School; Caroline Shields Walker Professor of Medicine

Moderator

Karen Adelman, PhD

Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology; Harvard Medical School

Presentations

Phillip Sharp, PhD

Institute Professor, Koch Institute and Department of Biology Massachusetts Institute of Technology

RNA Condensates in Transcription and RNA Splicing

Joan Steitz, PhD

Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Yale University School of Medicine

Viral Noncoding RNAs: New Functions, New Structures

Lynne E. Maquat, PhD

J. Lowell Orbison Endowed Chair, Professor of Biochemistry & Biophysics University of Rochester Medical Center

Nonsense-mediated mRNA Decay and Human Disease: Guardian and Executor of Gene Expression

Eugene Yeo, PhD

Professor of Cellular & Molecular Medicine University of California San Diego

RNA binding proteins as regulators, drugs and drug targets

Melissa J. Moore, PhD

Chief Scientific Officer, Platform Research Moderna Therapeutics

RNA as Medicine

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I am very much humbled by all the great scientists before us. Although our initial mapping of the CF gene to chromosome 7, followed by the gene identification work, was the first step in defining the basic defect of CF, difficult as it was, I am happy that the award also recognizes those people who have spent their lives improving the health of patients with this devastating disease, studying its pathophysiology and devising effective treatments. I would be remiss if I did not mention also the contributions of Jack Riordan, Johanna Rommens and Batsheva Kerem and the rest of my Toronto team in the CF gene cloning effort.
- Lap-chee Tsui

Lap-chee Tsui | 2018 Recipient

Professor Lap-Chee Tsui is the Founding President of the Academy of Sciences of Hong Kong, President of the Victor and William Fung Foundation, Director of Qiushi Academy for Advanced Studies and Master of the Residential College of International Campus, Zhejiang University.  He is also the University of Toronto’s Emeritus University Professor.

He is the immediate-past Vice Chancellor of The University of Hong Kong, prior to which, he was Geneticist-in-Chief at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and University Professor at University of Toronto, Canada
He received his Bachelor and Master degrees from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and his PhD from University of Pittsburgh.  He is world renowned for his research work in human genetics and genomics, including the identification of the gene for Cystic Fibrosis, which is an important piece of work in defining the basic defect of the disorder and in human genetic disease research as a whole. His other contributions include the cloning and characterization of mammalian crystallin genes and a comprehensive mapping and characterization of human chromosome 7.

Professor Tsui has over 300 peer-reviewed scientific publications and 65 invited book chapters.  He is the recipient of many national/international prizes, and is a Fellow of Royal Society of Canada, Royal Society of London and Academia Sinica.  He is a Associate Member of the National Academy of Sciences USA, a Foreign Member of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and is a Canadian Medical Hall of Fame Laureate.  His other awards include 15 honorary doctoral degrees, the Orders of Canada and Ontario, and the Grand Bauhinia Medal and Gold Bauhinia Star, and Justice of the Peace from Hong Kong.

 View Past Recipients