Joan A. Steitz, Ph.D., a pioneer in the field of RNA biology whose discoveries involved patients with a variety of autoimmune diseases, will be awarded the 2012 Pearl Meister Greengard Prize from The Rockefeller University. The prize, which honors female scientists who have made extraordinary contributions to biomedical science and carries an honorarium of $100,000, will be presented at a ceremony on Thursday, November 29 at Rockefeller University's Caspary Auditorium.
The Pearl Meister Greengard Prize was established by Paul Greengard, Ph.D., Vincent Astor Professor at Rockefeller University and head of the Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience, and his wife, sculptor Ursula von Rydingsvard. Dr. Greengard donated the proceeds of his 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Rockefeller University and, in partnership with generous supporters of the university, created the annual award named in memory of Greengard's mother, who died giving birth to him. Since 2004, the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize has recognized female scientists who have made exceptional contributions to biomedical science, a group that historically has not received appropriate recognition and acclaim.
"Joan Steitz, in addition to being a leader in the field of RNA biology, has been a role model for young women seeking careers in biomedical research," says Dr. Greengard. "Her success, in the face of gender discrimination early in her career, exemplifies the spirit of the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize."
"Any recognition that calls attention to women's accomplishments in science is important for the future participation of women," says Dr. Steitz. "I am deeply honored to be a recipient of the Greengard Prize."
Dr. Steitz is Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She is best known for discovering and defining the function of RNA-protein complexes called small nuclear ribonucleoproteins (snRNPs), which occur only in the cells of higher organisms. These cellular complexes play a key role in the splicing of pre-messenger RNA, the earliest product of DNA transcription. Both DNA and pre-messenger RNA typically contain numerous nonsense segments called "introns." Working in the nucleus, snRNPs cut the introns from pre-mRNA and splice together the resulting segments, which together make up messenger RNA.
Dr. Steitz's research may yield new insights into the diagnosis and treatment of lupus, an autoimmune disease that develops when patients make antibodies against their own DNA, snRNPs, or ribosomes, the body's protein-making factories. She and her colleagues are also studying other snRNPs involved in excising a rare, divergent class of introns and still other snRNPs involved in pre-ribosomal RNA processing.
Dr. Steitz earned her B.S. in chemistry from Antioch College in 1963. She became the sole woman in a class of 10 to begin graduate studies in biochemistry and molecular biology at Harvard, and the first female graduate student to work under Jim Watson's guidance after another male professor questioned her aspirations for a Ph.D. because she was a woman. During postdoctoral studies at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, she used early methods to determine RNA sequences where ribosomes initiate protein synthesis on bacterial mRNAs. She was appointed assistant professor at Yale in 1970, where her laboratory has been dedicated to studying RNA structure and function. In 1979, Dr. Steitz and her colleagues described snRNPs, the building blocks of the spliceosome. Her laboratory has defined the structures and functions of other noncoding ribonucleoproteins, including several produced by transforming herpesviruses.