Three researchers to be honored with SBS Award for achievement in biomolecular sciences and lead discovery

The Society for Biomolecular Sciences will honor three researchers for their substantial contributions to the field of drug discovery.  Each recipient will accept their award and speak at the SBS 16th Annual Conference & Exhibition in Phoenix, Arizona, April 11-15, 2010.

SBS Award for Achievement in Biomolecular Sciences & Lead Discovery

Lubert Stryer is being recognized for his many contributions to the enablement of drug discovery and HTS through work on G Protein-Coupled Receptors (GPCRs) and ion channel biology and pioneering fluorescence techniques.  He is Winzer Professor, Emeritus, in the School of Medicine and Professor of Neurobiology, Emeritus, at Stanford University.

Stryer has developed new fluorescence techniques for studying biomolecules and cells, as exemplified by fluorescence resonance energy transfer. He played a key role at Affymax and Affymetrix in devising novel optical techniques for generating high-density peptide and DNA arrays; he is a co-inventor of the DNA chip. Stryer has authored four editions of Biochemistry, a textbook used widely throughout the world for the past 25 years. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1984 and in 2007 he was presented with the National Medal of Science by President George W. Bush.

SBS Award for Accomplishment in Biomolecular Sciences & Lead Discovery

Kevan M. Shokat is being recognized for his seminal work in support of the biomolecular sciences and his contributions towards a chemical genetics approach for kinases, using the ASKA (ATP analog-sensitive kinase allele) technology.  

Shokat is currently a Professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco and Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2005 he became an investigator with Howard Hughes Medical Institute.  He is one of the leading investigators in the new field of chemical genetics. His research and leadership at the Howard Hughes Institute focuses on the development of chemical tools for the study of protein and lipid kinases in cellular signaling. He and his colleagues have developed a method for producing small molecules that are specific for a particular target in a signaling cascade by combining protein design and chemical synthesis.

SBS Technology Innovation Award

The Technology Innovation Award recognizes an outstanding novel technology that is predicted to have a significant impact on the field of biomolecular sciences.  The novel technology is likely to be unproven in the field but has the potential to have a huge impact on our processes and technology toolboxes.  Stephen W. Fesik is being honored for his discovery and development of the fragment-based lead discovery approach.

Currently, Fesik is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, where he leads a group focused on cancer drug discovery. He is also a member of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, the Institute of Chemical Biology, and the Center for Structural Biology. Prior to Vanderbilt, Fesik was Divisional Vice President of Cancer Research at Abbott Laboratories where he led a group responsible for discovering new drugs to treat cancer. He also developed several new NMR methods and determined the three dimensional structures of several proteins and protein/ligand complexes. In addition to these structural studies, he developed a method for drug discovery called SAR by NMR and applied this method to identify and optimize ligands for binding to many protein drug targets. His research has also involved the use of siRNA for target identification and target validation.