Joshua Sanes Appointed to Stowers Institute Scientific Advisory Board

Kansas City, Mo. (Jan. 3, 2006) – The Stowers Institute for Medical Research has appointed Joshua Sanes, Ph.D., to its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). Members of the SAB work closely with William B. Neaves, Ph.D., President and CEO, and Robb Krumlauf, Ph.D., Scientific Director, to ensure that the Institute meets its objective of conducting basic research of the highest quality by identifying candidates who meet the most rigorous scientific standards.

     Dr. Sanes is a renowned neurobiologist and Director of the Center for Brain Neuroscience in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University, where he is also a professor. He is a leader in the study of factors that regulate synapse formation. Information processing in the brain occurs at synapses, and defects in synapse formation are likely to underlie many neurological and psychiatric diseases.

     Dr. Sanes completed postdoctoral work with Dr. Zach Hall in the Department of Physiology at the University of California, San Francisco. He completed doctoral and master’s degrees at Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and Psychology at Yale College. Prior to joining Harvard University, Dr. Sanes was the Alumni Endowed Professor of Neurobiology in the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at Washington University School of Medicine.

     Dr. Sanes has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 2002. He serves on the editorial boards of the journals Cell, Journal of Cell Biology, and Neuron. From 1999 to 2003, he served on the National Advisory Council for National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke of the National Institutes of Health. He is currently the chair of the Scientific Advisory Boards for the Max-Planck Institut for Neurobiology in Munich and the Searle Scholars Program. Additionally, Dr. Sanes serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Additional members of the SAB include:

Douglas A. Melton, Ph.D.
Chairman of the Stowers Institute Scientific Advisory Board
     Dr. Melton was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995 for notable research in molecular embryology. Work from his laboratory has advanced knowledge of how cell fates are specified during vertebrate development through studies on the localization of DNA transcripts in eggs and the proteins responsible for the induction of mesoderm and neural tissue.

     Dr. Melton, who joined the Stowers Institute Scientific Advisory Board in 1999, earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology at Trinity College and the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge University. He earned a bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Illinois and a B.A. in history and philosophy of science at Cambridge University. He is currently the Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor in the Natural Sciences at the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology of Harvard University, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and co-director of Harvard's Stem Cell Institute and Center for Genomic Research.

Michael Levine, Ph.D.
     Dr. Levine was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1998 in recognition of his analysis of regulatory events that govern segmentation and dorsal-ventral polarity in fruit fly embryos. His work provided an example of combinatorial regulation at a complex enhancer and established new paradigms for transcriptional control.

     Dr. Levine was appointed to the Stowers Institute Scientific Advisory Board in 1998. He has a Ph.D. from Yale University and is Director of the Center for Integrative Genomics and Professor of Genetics in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California-Berkeley.

Susan L. Lindquist, Ph.D.
     Dr. Lindquist was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1997 for revealing the molecular basis of how cells respond to extreme stress by producing proteins designed to prevent and repair damage. She elucidated how heat shock proteins are regulated post-transcriptionally and how they produce stress tolerance by modulating the activity and aggregation state of other proteins.

     Dr. Lindquist received her Ph.D. in biology from Harvard University and her undergraduate degree in microbiology from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. She joined the University of Chicago faculty, where she subsequently became an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Lindquist was appointed to the Stowers Institute Scientific Advisory Board in 2000. She served as Director of the Whitehead Institute and is currently a member of the Whitehead Institute and Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Eric N. Olson, Ph.D.
     Dr. Olson was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2000 for his integrated use of biochemical, genetic, and molecular biological methods to resolve how tissues are determined and differentiated in multicellular organisms. His research showed how myogenic and cardiogenic transcription factors control organogenesis of skeletal muscle and heart tissues in fruit flies and laboratory mice.

     Dr. Olson, who joined the Stowers Institute Scientific Advisory Board in 2000, received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Wake Forest University Medical School and a B.A. degree in biology and chemistry from Wake Forest University. He currently chairs the Department of Molecular Biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, serves as director of the Hamon Center for Basic Research in Cancer, and holds the Robert A. Welch Distinguished Chair in Basic Cancer Research and the Annie and Willie Nelson Professorship in Stem Cell Research.

Janet Rossant, Ph.D.
     Dr. Rossant was elected to the Royal Society of London in 2000 in recognition of her discoveries in the regulation of early development. Her research centers on understanding the genetic control of normal and abnormal development in the early mouse embryo using both cellular and genetic manipulation techniques.

     Dr. Rossant, who joined the Stowers Institute Scientific Advisory Board in 2005, is Chief of Research at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. She is also a University Professor at the University of Toronto, and a Professor in the Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics and the Department of Obstetrics/Gynaecology at the University of Toronto. Dr. Rossant trained at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, United Kingdom and has been in Canada since 1977, first at Brock University and then in Toronto. She is a Distinguished Investigator of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Charles J. Sherr, M.D., Ph.D.
     Dr. Sherr was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995 for notable discoveries in retrovirology, oncogene characterization and function, receptor signaling, and cell cycle research.

     Dr. Sherr, who joined the Stowers Institute Scientific Advisory Board in 2000, received Ph.D. and M.D. degrees from New York University School of Medicine and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and an A.B. degree from Oberlin College. He was a member of the National Cancer Institute before joining St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, where he is now a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and the Herrick Foundation Chairman of the Department of Genetics and Tumor Cell Biology.

About the Stowers Institute
     Housed in a 600,000 square-foot state-of-the-art facility on a 10-acre campus in the heart of Kansas City, Missouri, the Stowers Institute for Medical Research conducts basic research on fundamental processes of cellular life. Through its commitment to collaborative research and the use of cutting-edge technology, the Institute seeks more effective means of preventing and curing disease. The Institute was founded by Jim and Virginia Stowers, two cancer survivors who have created combined endowments of $2 billion in support of basic research of the highest quality.