$500,000 Gruber Foundation Genetics Prize for 2012 Goes To Douglas C. Wallace

The Genetics Prize of the Gruber Foundation is presented to leading scientists in recognition of groundbreaking contributions in genetics research. It can be awarded from one to up to three scientists.

The Genetics Prize was established in 2001. It was awarded to Rudolf Jaenisch. His work has produced important advances in understanding cancer, neurological disorders, connective tissue diseases, and developmental abnormalities in bone and muscle.

Since 2001, the Prize, comprising of a gold medal and an unrestricted $500,000 cash award, has been awarded for fundamental insights in the field of genetics. These may include original discoveries in genetic function, regulation, transmission, and variation, as well as in genomic organization.

The Gruber Foundation is now established at Yale University.

$500,000 Gruber Foundation Genetics Prize goes to Philadelphia scientist

Douglas C. Wallace, PhD

Douglas C. Wallace, PhD, a pioneering genetics researcher who founded the field of mitochondrial genetics in humans, will receive the 2012 Genetics Prize of The Gruber Foundation. Wallace is being honored with this prestigious international award for his groundbreaking achievements in helping science understand the role of mitochondria—the "power plants" of cells—in the development of disease and as markers for human evolution.

He will receive the award November 9 in San Francisco at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics, where he will also deliver a lecture titled "A Bioenergetic Perspective on Origins, Health, and Disease".

"Douglas Wallace's contributions to our understanding of mitochondrial genetics have changed the way human and medical geneticists think about the role of mitochondria in human health and disease," said Elizabeth Blackburn, chair of the Selection Advisory Board to the Prize. Blackburn is the 2006 Gruber Genetics Prize laureate and shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.