Cold Spring Harbor, NY — Professor Gregory聽 Hannon, Ph.D., of 黑料吃瓜资源 (CSHL), a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, has won a MERIT Award from the .聽This prestigious award, which stands for Method to Extend Research in Time, recognizes highly productive scientists by extending funding for an existing research project grant.
A leader in the field of small RNA biology, Hannon has sought to understand the biological roles of small RNAs and the underlying mechanisms by which they operate.聽He and colleagues have identified and characterized many of the protein complexes, including Dicer and RISC, that generate and process small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs).
Hannon has been a pioneer in harnessing RNA interference. RNAi is a natural cellular mechanism implicated in gene regulation and in genome defense that has been mobilized by scientists to hunt for cancer genes, to stop viral infections, and most recently, on an exploratory basis, to treat human diseases.聽Hannon鈥檚 lab more broadly strives to understand the biology of cancer cells, with a focus on breast and pancreatic cancer, and on the biological mechanisms of resistance to targeted cancer treatments.
Over the past several years, Hannon鈥檚 team has broken new ground by focusing on the roles of small RNAs in sex cells, sperm and ovaries.聽These cells tend to have the most elaborate set of small RNA pathways of any cell type.聽They have found that a class of small RNA molecules called piwi-interacting RNAs, or piRNAs, are central players in a pathway that defends the genome of mammals from mobile genetic elements, repeating bits of DNA which can disrupt the transfer of genetic information from parents to offspring.
“NIGMS selected Dr. Hannon for a MERIT Award to recognize his remarkable record of discoveries on how small RNA molecules regulate gene expression and help ensure that the genome is passed faithfully from parents to their offspring,” said Michael Bender, Ph.D., NIGMS. 鈥淗is work is likely to yield many additional insights into the biology of small RNAs, and also has the potential to lead to new, RNA-based treatments for cancer and other diseases.鈥�
鈥淭hanks to support from NIGMS, we discovered a mechanism by which the genomes in the germ cells of all animals are protected from the damage that transposons cause. The MERIT Award allows us to continue our work, focusing on how this immunity mechanism operates and to probe the full range of its biological functions in preserving the integrity of the germ line passed on from generation to generation.鈥�
Under the MERIT Award program, Hannon鈥檚 research was selected from the pool of all current fiscal-year competing R01 grants across the National Institutes of Health.聽 At any given time, NIGMS supports more than 4700 grants and awards and only a handful meet the criteria for the MERIT program which intended to provide long-term, stable support to investigators whose research competence and productivity are distinctly superior and who are likely to continue to perform in an outstanding manner.
鈥淐ongratulations to Dr. Hannon on this award, which recognizes the invaluable contributions that he and his lab at CSHL have made to understanding RNA biology and putting it to use as a clinical tool to fight cancer,鈥� said CSHL President and CEO Bruce Stillman. 鈥淭he MERIT Award is an important demonstration of public confidence in innovative basic biomedical research and is a critical investment the NIH makes in the well-being our nation鈥檚 citizens.鈥�
Dr. Hannon鈥檚 current work is supported by the National Institute of General Medical Science of the National Institutes of Health under award number R37 GM062534.
Written by: Dagnia Zeidlickis, Vice President, Communications | [email protected] | 516-367-8455
About the NIH MERIT Award
The objective of the MERIT Award is to provide long-term, stable support to investigators whose research competence and productivity are distinctly superior and who are likely to continue to perform in an outstanding manner. Support to such investigators is expected to foster their continued creativity and spare them the administrative burdens associated with preparation and submission of full-length research grant applications. This may allow investigators the opportunity to take greater risks, be more adventurous in their lines of inquiry, or take the time to develop new techniques. After an initial five years of support, the MERIT awardee may request an extension of three to five years based on an eight-page progress report and a one-page abstract of the research plan for the extension period.