Max Delbrück Medal for Protein Researcher

The American molecular biologist Prof. Susan Lindquist from the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA was honoured in Berlin with the Max Delbrück Medal. The researcher, who also holds a professorship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is thus acknowledged for her research into protein folding. Protein misfolding plays a significant role in severe neurological diseases such as Parkinson's and  Huntington's disease. Professor Lindquist and her colleagues were successful in reproducing the consequences of Parkinson's disease in yeast cells. Since 1992, the Max Delbrück Medal has been awarded annually to an outstanding scientist as part of the "Berlin Lecture on Molecular Medicine" which the award recipient holds and which the MDC organises together with other Berlin research institutions and Bayer Schering Pharma AG. Professor Lindquist spoke about "HSF and the Balancing Act between Neurodegeneration and Cancer." She is, following Prof. Robert Weinberg (1996), Prof. Eric S. Lander (2001) and Prof. Rudolf Jänisch (2006), the fourth faculty member of the Whitehead Institute to receive this medal.

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