͵͵

Member News

Awards for Medlock, Bagde and Maquat

ASBMB Today Staff
May 29, 2023

Teaching awards for Medlock

Portrait of Amy Medlock
Amy Medlock

Amy Medlock, an associate professor of biochemistry at the Augusta University/University of Georgia Medical Partnership, recently received the 2021-2022 Peer-Nominated Teaching Award for Small Group Teaching and the Medical College of Georgia's Excellence in Teaching Award. 

These awards recognize outstanding educators and are selected from faculty nominations and student evaluations, respectively. This is Medlock's fourth consecutive year receiving the MCG Excellence in Teaching Award. She also received a peer-nominated award for her large group teaching in 2020-2021. She and other faculty members were honored during a ceremony in February. 

Medlock earned her Ph.D. at UGA and completed postdoctoral work at UGA and the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Her  focuses on the synthesis of heme and regulation of the heme biosynthesis pathway. Heme is important in processes including central metabolic pathways, oxygen binding and transport and reduction/oxidation reactions. Medlock recently published a paper on the enzyme ferrochelatase in erythroid and non-erythroid cells. She also does research on science education and pedagogy.

Bagde wins grad student award 

Portrait of Saket Bagde
Saket Bagde

Saket Bagde has received a 2023 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. This award recognizes exceptional achievement in graduate studies in the biological sciences. Bagde was honored at a symposium on May 5 at Fred Hutch, along with the other 11 recipients. 

is a graduate student at Cornell University. He works with thesis advisor , a professor of molecular biology and genetics. Bagde’s research focuses on how antibiotics are synthesized using molecular machines known as modular polyketide synthases. He also studies lipid and protein cellular transport. Bagde previously received his undergraduate and master’s degrees from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune, India, and worked as a research assistant at the University of Texas at El Paso.

In a from Cornell, Bagde said he was honored to receive this award. “Recognitions like this remind me to take a pause and appreciate all the amazing people I’ve worked with,” Bagde said. “Together, our skills have led to the development of something that is going to help people.”

Maquat receives Gruber Prize

Portrait of Lynne Maquat
Lynne Maquat

Lynne Maquat, a distinguished chair and professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of Rochester Medical Center, has won the 2023 Gruber Prize in Genetics. She shares the award with Alan Jacobson of the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. The two independently helped identify and describe nonsense-mediated mRNA decay, a pathway that degrades mRNA transcripts with premature stop codons and averts production of truncated, potentially toxic bits of protein. Maquat worked with mammals, and Jacobson worked with yeast.

Maquat began her studies of nonsense-mediated mRNA decay by characterizing human patients with hemolytic diseases. Her work established that mRNAs with a premature stop codon were less stable. She clarified the mechanisms of nonsense-mediated mRNA decay in mammalian cells and also showed how it disables faulty transcripts that arise from errors in human gene expression. Cells also use the process, Maquat found, to adapt to environmental shifts.  

Among her awards, Maquat previously received the 2021 Wolf Prize in Medicine, 2021 Warren Alpert Foundation Prize and 2018 Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Excellence in Science Award.

Maquat and Jacobson will receive the Gruber award, which includes $500,000, in July at the International Congress of Genetics in Melbourne, Australia. Their discoveries could help to spur treatments for such diseases as fragile X syndrome and Duchenne muscular dystrophy. 



 

Enjoy reading ASBMB Today?

Become a member to receive the print edition four times a year and the digital edition weekly.

Learn more
ASBMB Today Staff

This article was written by a member or members of the ASBMB Today staff.

Get the latest from ASBMB Today

Enter your email address, and we’ll send you a weekly email with recent articles, interviews and more.

Latest in People

People highlights or most popular articles

Transforming learning through innovation and collaboration
Award

Transforming learning through innovation and collaboration

Nov. 22, 2024

Neena Grover will receive the William C. Rose Award for Exemplary Contributions to Education at the 2025 ASBMB Annual Meeting, April 12–15 in Chicago.

Guiding grocery carts to shape healthy habits
Award

Guiding grocery carts to shape healthy habits

Nov. 21, 2024

Robert “Nate” Helsley will receive the Walter A. Shaw Young Investigator in Lipid Research Award at the 2025 ASBMB Annual Meeting, April 12–15 in Chicago.

Leading the charge for gender equity
Award

Leading the charge for gender equity

Nov. 19, 2024

Nicole Woitowich will receive the ASBMB Emerging Leadership Award at the 2025 ASBMB Annual meeting, April 12–15 in Chicago.

Honors for de la Fuente, Mittag and De La Cruz
Member News

Honors for de la Fuente, Mittag and De La Cruz

Nov. 18, 2024

César de la Fuente receives the American Society of Microbiology’s Award for Early Career Basic Research. Tanja Mittag and Enrique M. De La Cruz are named fellows by the Biophysical Society.

In memoriam: Horst Schulz
In Memoriam

In memoriam: Horst Schulz

Nov. 18, 2024

He was a professor emeritus at City College of New York and at the CUNY Graduate Center in Manhattan whose work concentrated on increasing our understanding of mitochondrial fatty acid metabolism and an ASBMB member since 1971.

Computational and biophysical approaches to disordered proteins
Award

Computational and biophysical approaches to disordered proteins

Nov. 14, 2024

Rohit Pappu will receive the 2025 DeLano Award for Computational Biosciences at the ASBMB Annual Meeting, April 12-15 in Chicago.