The 2009 Edith and Peter O'Donnell Award in Medicine
Dr. Lee is a Professor in the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Professor in the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. from State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in New York. His Ph.D. focused on characterization of the first mutations in types II and III collagens in human dwarfisms. His postdoctoral studies at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York culminated with the identification of the fibrillin gene in Marfan syndrome. Dr. Lee completed his pediatrics training at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. He completed his clinical and biochemical genetics fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine. He is board certified in pediatrics, clinical genetics and biochemical genetics. He is Founder and Director of the Skeletal Dysplasia Clinic at Texas Children’s Hospital and Founder and the Director of the Medical Student Research Track at Baylor College of Medicine. He is a member of the Graduate programs in the Departments of Genetics, Cell and Molecular Biology, Developmental Biology and Translational Biology and Molecular Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Lee serves on multiple national advisory boards and currently chairs the National Institutes of Health Gene Therapy and Inborn Errors study section, the HHMI Medical Fellows program, the HHMI Physician Scientist Early Career Award and March of Dimes Biomedical Research Grant review panel.
As a pediatrician and geneticist, Dr. Lee has translated the study of structural birth defects and inborn errors of metabolism into a basic understanding of development, disease and novel therapeutic approaches. His long standing focus, where he has made the most outstanding contributions, has been the study of human skeletal dysplasias and skeletal development. He has also applied genetic approaches to the study of biochemical genetic disorders as models of complex disease and the development of cell and gene therapy for these conditions.Dr. Lee has received local and national recognition including induction into the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 2008, the 2007 Michael E. DeBakey Excellence in Research Award and the 2005 American Philosophical Society’s Judson Darland Prize for Achievement in Patient-Oriented Clinical Research.
The 2009 Edith and Peter O'Donnell Award in Engineering
Brian A. Korgel is Cockrell School of Engineering Temple Professor #1 and Matthew Van Winkle Regents Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his PhD in chemical engineering at UCLA in 1997, where he earned recognition as a UCLA Alumni Distinguished Scholar and joined the faculty at UT Austin in 1998 after a one and a half year post doctoral position in the Department of Chemistry at University College Dublin in Ireland. In 2007, he was a Senior Fulbright Fellow to Spain at the University of Alicante in the Department of Applied Physics and in 2008 was Visiting Professor in the Department of Physics at the Université Josef Fourier in France. His research is in the field of nanomaterials chemistry and engineering and is widely recognized, with more than 130 journal publications and 100 international invited seminars and lectures. He serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Crystal Growth and Materials Science and Engineering: R and is a member of the editorial advisory board of the journal Chemistry of Materials. Additionally, Korgel has been influential in nanoscience education in Texas and the commercialization of new technologies invented at UT Austin. He founded the Doctoral Portfolio Program in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at UT Austin (one of the first nanoscience PhD programs in the USA) and served for four years as an advisor on the Texas Nanotechnology Foundation Scientific Review Board. He has also co-founded two startup companies: Innovalight in 2002 and Piñon Technologies in 2007. Innovalight is a venture-backed company now located in Santa Clara, CA, which among its various accolades was selected for a Technology Pioneer Award with the World Economic Forum in 2006 and a Red Herring R&D 100 Award in 2007. Piñon is located in Austin, TX, and is focused on the development of nanocrystal and nanowire technologies. The 2009 Edith and Peter O'Donnell Award in Science
Dr. Rama Ranganathan is a professor of pharmacology and director of the Systems Biology Division of the Cecil H. and Ida Green Comprehensive Center for Molecular, Computational and Systems Biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, where he also holds the Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Chair in Biomedical Science. Dr. Ranganathan earned both his medical degree and his doctorate in biology from the University of California, San Diego, after receiving his bachelor’s degree in bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He joined the UT Southwestern faculty in 1997. Dr. Ranganathan’s work aims to link basic research on molecules and cells with analysis of how biological systems function as a whole, both in health and in sickness. The ultimate goal of this field of research, called “systems biology,” is to understand how networks of interactions on various levels – from proteins and cells to tissues and organs – produce well-honed biological systems that are more than the sum of their parts. Progress in systems biology research has led not only to a better understanding of how nature works in general, but also is vital to making important strides in diagnosing and treating disease. Dr. Ranganathan’s research has focused in part on uncovering the most fundamental evolutionary design principles of living systems. By carefully examining how proteins have evolved over time, for example, Dr. Ranganathan discovered a set of simple “rules” that nature appears to have used to design and manufacture proteins, which carry out all of life’s functions. To test the rules he discerned, Dr. Ranganathan developed sophisticated computer programs to then produce artificial proteins that look and function just like their natural counterparts. Such design work could lead to tailor-made proteins that perform specific tasks in the body or replace malfunctioning natural proteins. More generally, this work could contribute to understanding how complex biological systems can arise through the iterative process of random variation and selection that we call evolution. |
Brendan H.L. Lee, M.D., Ph.D. 
Brian Korgel , Ph.D.
Rama Ranganathan, M.D., Ph.D.