News Release

Stanford Microbiologist Receives Lifetime Achievement Award

Grant and Award Announcement

American Society for Microbiology

WASHINGTON, D.C. -April 10, 1998-- Charles Yanofsky, Professor of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, has been awarded the 1998 Abbott-American Society for Microbiology (ASM) Lifetime Achievement Award. The award, which is given to honor a distinguished scientist for a lifetime of outstanding contributions in fundamental biomedical research in any of the microbiological sciences, will be presented at the General Meeting of the ASM, May 17-21, 1998 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Dr. Yanofsky, who is being recognized for his discoveries in molecular microbiology, received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in microbiology from Yale University.

His research verified one of the fundamental postulates of genetic chemistry and laid the foundation for the solution of the genetic code.

Dr. Yanofsky also determined the chemical structure of the six genes encoding the enzymes for protein biosynthesis and identified the precise chemical interactions between the regulatory proteins and nucleic acid sequences that regulate the output of this set of genes.

He discovered a regulatory mechanism for controlling gene expression by attenuation, a device which determines whether transcription, once initiated, produces translatable messanger ribonucleic acids or is terminated before reaching the structural genes.

He was nominated by Robert Landick, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

The American Society for Microbiology, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is the oldest and largest single biological membership organization, with over 40,000 members worldwide.

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