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Medzhitov snags another big science prize

More than 150 scientists were nominated for the first-ever Lurie Prize in the Biomedical Sciences. Just one person won it: Yale immunologist Ruslan Medzhitov.

The David W. Wallace Professor of Immunobiology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the Yale School of Medicine, Medzhitov will receive a $100,000 prize "for seminal discoveries related to the innate immune system, the human body’s first line of defense against invading organisms," says a press release from the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health.

Medzhitov came to Yale in 1994 to work with immunologist Charles Janeway, who had developed a radical new theory about how the immune system works. Despite his lack of hands-on research experience—he had no access to labs in Moscow, where he earned his PhD—Medzhitov ran the experiments that proved his mentor's theory. He has racked up several prestigious honors, including the Shaw Prize in 2011 and the Rosenstiel Award in 2010.

The Lurie Prize, funded by FNIH board member Ann Lurie, "recognizes young scientists, defined as individuals under the age of 52, who have made paradigm changing contributions to biomedical research," the Foundation's press release says.

So for scientists, "young" means under 52? Clearly I'm in the wrong field.

Filed under Ruslan Medzhitov, School of Medicine, Lurie Prize, immunology
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