Washington, DC—May 28, 2008—The 2008 American Society for Microbiology (ASM) Promega Biotechnology Research Award is being presented to David J. Lipman, Director, National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. This award recognizes outstanding contributions to the application of biotechnology through fundamental microbiological research and development.
Dr. Lipman was among the first to foresee the need for extremely efficient computer programs to compare one DNA or protein sequence against a complete database of all known sequences. He also led the way in creating powerful bioinformatics software tools that have revolutionized discovery research. In his role as Director of the NCBI at NIH, he has had a profound impact on the progress of biological science and biotechnology around the world by providing easy access to data, tools, and knowledge. Dr. Lipman's leadership and vision led to the creation of PubMed, which facilitates access to biomedical literature, and has also ensured that GenBank, the NIH annotated collection of all publicly available DNA sequences, remains responsive and up-to-date. In 1990, he introduced BLAST, an extraordinarily fast method for comparative sequence analysis. Dr. Lipman is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine, and a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics.
Dr. Lipman received his B.A. from Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, and his M.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo.
The Promega Biotechnology Research Award will be presented during the 108th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), June 1 – June 5, 2008 in Boston, Massachusetts. ASM is the world's oldest and largest life science organization and has more than 43,000 members worldwide. ASM's mission is to advance the microbiological sciences and promote the use of scientific knowledge for improved health and economic and environmental well-being.