Awardees

2020 RNA Society Lifetime Achievement Award

We are pleased to announce Matthias Hentze as the recipient of the 2020 RNA Society Lifetime Achievement Award.

Matthias Hentze, Professor and Director at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, is recognized for his longstanding contributions in the fields of RNA biology and gene regulation. Matthias’ early work focused on translation regulation, having identified the first cis-acting mRNA regulatory element and RNA binding protein partner during the regulation of iron homeostasis in mammalian cells. More recently, the Hentze lab has developed mRNA interactome capture to identify hundreds of previously uncharacterized RNA-binding proteins – a critical advance in elaborating RNP networks in the cell. Discoveries by the Hentze group have contributed not only to our fundamental understanding of gene control at the level of RNA but have also provided critical insight in the areas of developmental biology, brain function, cancer development and other diseases. In addition to his significant scientific contributions, Matthias is recognized for his leadership, training and mentoring of hundreds of young scientists within his lab, at EMBL, and throughout Europe. Matthias will present his award talk at RNA 2021 in Singapore.

2020 RNA Society Lifetime Service Award

We are pleased to announce Sarah Woodson has been awarded the 2020 RNA Society Lifetime Service Award.

Sarah Woodson, the T.C. Jenkins Professor of Biophysics at Johns Hopkins University, is recognized for her years of contribution and service to the RNA Society.  In addition to her successful research program, Sarah has generously dedicated her time and leadership under a variety of society roles including Director (2006 – 2007), Secretary (2000 – 2002) and, most recently, as society President (2015-2016) – serving the first two-year presidential term upon the revision of society bylaws and expansion of the role in 2015. During her time as a Society member, Sarah has also served on the Nominating Committee, and in almost every role during one or more of our annual meetings, including mentor, poster judge, Session Chair, and co-organizer (for the 2000 meeting in Madison, Wisconsin, and 2013 meeting in Davos, Switzerland). Sarah continues her long history of service in her role as lead organizer of RNA2020 this year in Vancouver, Canada.

2020 Elisa Izaurralde Award Winner

The RNA Society is very pleased to announce that Lori Passmore is the recipient of the inaugural 2020 Elisa Izaurralde Award.

Lori Passmore, from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, is the first recipient of the Elisa Izaurralde Award. Lori has made outstanding contributions to our understanding of the mechanisms of RNA polyadenylation and deadenylation and their coupling to transcription and translation. Her courage and commitment to long-term challenging projects, along with her contributions to the development of cryo-EM methods, allowed her to functionally reconstitute and determine the structure of large multi-protein complexes involved in nucleic acids metabolism, including the 1MDa cleavage and polyadenylation (CPF) complex, the 0.5 MDa Ccr4-Not deadenylation complex and the Fanconi anemia ubiquitin ligase complex.  A concept emerging from her work is that the regulatory properties of such complexes critically depend on the entangled activities and mutual influences of their components. Lori is also a dedicated mentor and a passionate science educator and activist. She was nominated by Kevin Weeks and Witek Filipowicz. Lori will present abstract 341 in Plenary Session 1.

2020 Mid-Career Award Winner

Jernej Ule, from UCL and The Francis Crick Institute in London, UK, is the recipient of this year’s Mid-Career Award. Jernej has been instrumental – initially during his PhD in the laboratory of Bob Darnell and then as Group Leader at the LMB – for the development of highly popular CLIP methods to study RNA-Protein and RNA-RNA interactions. These, in turn, have been essential to establish transcriptome-wide positional effects of regulatory factors in alternative splicing decisions (RNA Maps), including proteins involved in neurodegenerative disease. His group also established the widespread occurrence of recursive splicing in the mammalian brain and its regulation by exon junction complexes, as well as the key role that transposable elements play in shaping the evolution of post-transcriptional mechanisms. Jernej is a dedicated mentor and a generous contributor to the RNA community, including the organization of courses and workshops. He was nominated by Chris Smith. Jernej will present abstract 85 in Plenary Session 3.

2020 Early-Career Award Winner

Igor Ulitsky, from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is the recipient of this year’s Early-Career Award. Originally trained as a computational biologist, Igor became interested in experimental biology and long non-coding RNAs during his postdoc in David Bartel’s lab. Since the establishment of his independent group six years ago, Igor has become a leader in studies to decipher the evolution, biological roles and mechanisms of lncRNAs. Igor’s contributions include the demonstration of the role of lncRNAs in neuron regeneration, the role of sequences enriched in Alu repeats in the nuclear localization of lncRNAs and how these molecules modulate the activity of RNA binding proteins such as Pumilio repressors. The group also develops high-throughput methods to assess function through RNA localization and a rich toolbox for the identification of lncRNA homologs. Igor has also generously contributed to spread the importance of the biology of non-coding RNAs by organizing workshops, meetings and courses. Igor will present abstract 578 in Plenary Session 5.