DALLAS – Oct. 13, 2022 – UT Southwestern slumber researcher Masashi Yanagisawa, M.D., Ph.D., has been awarded the Breakthrough Prize successful Life Sciences for his find of the origin of narcolepsy, marking the 3rd Breakthrough Prize awarded to UT Southwestern scientists since the prizes were launched successful 2013.
Masashi Yanagisawa, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Yanagisawa was a full-time module subordinate for astir 25 years astatine UT Southwestern, wherever helium conducted the prize-winning research. He is present a part-time Professor of Molecular Genetics astatine UTSW and a subordinate of the module astatine the University of Tsukuba successful Japan. He received the grant on with Emmanuel Mignot, M.D., Ph.D., of the Stanford University School of Medicine, who made the aforesaid find independently. The Breakthrough Prize, known arsenic the world’s astir lucrative subject award, provides $3 cardinal to its laureates.
“I’m profoundly honored to get this award, which recognizes not lone our enactment but the tract of basal slumber research,” Dr. Yanagisawa said. In 1998, helium discovered a macromolecule called orexin, which ordinarily regulates wakefulness. The pursuing year, helium showed that orexin deficiency causes narcolepsy, which paved the mode for much extended slumber research.
The Breakthrough Prize Foundation noted that the doctors’ discoveries person led to treatments shown to relieve the symptoms of narcolepsy, arsenic good arsenic the plan of sleep-inducing drugs.
“This probe has the imaginable to assistance the millions worldwide who endure from debilitating slumber disorders,” said Daniel K. Podolsky, M.D., President of UT Southwestern. “We are truthful arrogant to person Dr. Yanagisawa arsenic a workfellow and congratulate him connected this honor.”
UT Southwestern Nobel Laureates Michael S. Brown, M.D., Professor of Molecular Genetics and Internal Medicine, and Joseph L. Goldstein, M.D., Chair of Molecular Genetics and Professor of Internal Medicine, recruited Dr. Yanagisawa successful 1991 arsenic a tenured Associate Professor of Molecular Genetics and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator (HHMI).
“His probe is similar a enactment of art. It’s spectacular and innovative portion astatine the aforesaid clip thorough and rigorous,” Dr. Goldstein said.
Dr. Yanagisawa credits UT Southwestern’s uncommon probe situation for fostering innovation.
“Although UT Southwestern Medical Center has agelong been a large, internationally renowned world aesculapian center, it inactive retains a ‘small-school spirit’ successful my view,” helium said. “Rather than competing with each other, radical cooperate with each different for the payment of our school.”
Helen Hobbs, M.D.
Previous recipients of the Breakthrough Prize successful Life Sciences astatine UT Southwestern are geneticist Helen Hobbs, M.D., Director of the Eugene McDermott Center for Human Growth and Development, and biochemist Zhijian “James” Chen, Ph.D., Professor of Molecular Biology and Director of UTSW’s Center for Inflammation Research.
Zhijian “James” Chen, Ph.D.
Dr. Hobbs, Professor of Internal Medicine and Molecular Genetics, was honored successful 2016 for transformative techniques she developed and utilized to place cardinal genes progressive successful lipid metabolism and fatty liver disease. Dr. Chen received the grant successful 2019 for his find of the cGAS enzyme that launches the body’s immune defence against infections and cancers.
Other Breakthrough Prizes for 2023 were awarded successful Fundamental Physics and Mathematics, arsenic good arsenic to early-career scientists and pistillate mathematicians. The Breakthrough Prize Foundation is sponsored by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs including Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Julia and Yuri Milner, and Anne Wojcicki.
Dr. Brown, a Regental Professor, holds The W.A. (Monty) Moncrief Distinguished Chair successful Cholesterol and Arteriosclerosis Research, and the Paul J. Thomas Chair successful Medicine. Dr. Chen holds the George L. MacGregor Distinguished Chair successful Biomedical Science. Dr. Goldstein, a Regental Professor, holds the Julie and Louis A. Beecherl, Jr. Distinguished Chair successful Biomedical Research, and the Paul J. Thomas Chair successful Medicine. Dr. Hobbs holds the Eugene McDermott Distinguished Chair for the Study of Human Growth and Development, the Philip O'Bryan Montgomery, Jr., M.D. Distinguished Chair successful Developmental Biology, and the 1995 Dallas Heart Ball Chair successful Cardiology Research. Dr. Podolsky holds the Philip O'Bryan Montgomery, Jr., M.D. Distinguished Presidential Chair successful Academic Administration, and the Doris and Bryan Wildenthal Distinguished Chair successful Medical Science.
About UT Southwestern Medical Center
UT Southwestern, 1 of the nation’s premier world aesculapian centers, integrates pioneering biomedical probe with exceptional objective attraction and education. The institution’s module has received six Nobel Prizes, and includes 26 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 17 members of the National Academy of Medicine, and 14 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators. The full-time module of much than 2,900 is liable for groundbreaking aesculapian advances and is committed to translating science-driven probe rapidly to caller objective treatments. UT Southwestern physicians supply attraction successful much than 80 specialties to much than 100,000 hospitalized patients, much than 360,000 exigency country cases, and oversee astir 4 cardinal outpatient visits a year.
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