The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health has selected David Sabatini to receive its fifth annual Lurie Prize in Biomedical Sciences for discovery of the mTOR (mechanistic target of rapamycin) cellular pathway as a key regulator of growth and metabolism in response to nutrients.
Sabatini is a pioneer in the study of nutrient sensing and the impact of caloric restriction on health and lifespan. The Lurie Prize in Biomedical Sciences will be presented to him at the FNIH Award Ceremony hosted by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on May 17 in Washington, D.C.
Sabatini is a member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, a Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His research identified the specific protein components of the mTOR pathway, including mTOR and two large complexes that contain it called mTOR Complex 1 (mTORC1) and Complex 2 (mTORC2), and documented how mTOR regulation and dysregulation affects normal and diseased physiology.
As caloric restriction is associated with the slowing of cellular aging, Sabatini’s research suggests that one day, the mTOR pathway could be manipulated to trick the body into mimicking a fasting state even under nutrient replete conditions, and thereby protect against age-related diseases, such as cancer and diabetes. The Lurie Prize in Biomedical Sciences recognizes outstanding achievement by a promising scientist aged 52 or younger.
Sabatini was selected by a jury of six distinguished biomedical researchers, chaired by Solomon Snyder, Distinguished Service Professor of Neuroscience, Pharmacology & Psychiatry, The Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University and Vice Chairman for Science of the FNIH.
The prize includes a $100,000 honorarium, donated by philanthropist and FNIH Board Member Ann Lurie. Lurie is President of the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Foundation, which she founded with her late husband Robert, and the President of Lurie Holdings Inc.
Previous recipients of the Lurie Prize in Biomedical Sciences are Jeannie Lee, from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School (2016), Karl Deisseroth, from Stanford University (2015), Jennifer Doudna, from the University of California, Berkeley (2014) and Ruslan Medzhitov, from Yale University School of Medicine (2013).
Johnson & Johnson Innovation will sponsor the 2017 FNIH Award Ceremony.
