Francis Collins and
Ari Patrinos Receive Energy Secretary's Gold Award for Human Genome
Project Leadership
September 10, 2003
WASHINGTON, DC --
Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham today presented Francis Collins
and Aristides Patrinos with the Secretary’s Gold Award for
their leadership of the government’s Human Genome Project. Francis
Collins is the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute
at the National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human
Services. Ari Patrinos heads the Office of Biological and
Environmental Research at the Department of Energy’s (DOE)
Office of Science.
The award is the Energy Department's highest
honorary award and includes a plaque with citation, a medallion and
a rosette. Secretary Abraham presented Drs. Collins and Patrinos
with the award in a ceremony at DOE headquarters. Director
of the National Institutes of Health Elias Zerhouni represented the
Department of Health and Human Services at the ceremony.
“These awards are in recognition
of your vision and sustained leadership of the international human
genome project, which culminated in the completion of the human DNA
sequence in April 2003,” Secretary Abraham said. “The
project’s success was largely due to your ability to join the
efforts of two agencies: the Department of Health and Human Services’ National
Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy’s Office
of Science. This outstanding scientific and management
accomplishment has opened the door to the biotechnology revolution
that now offers such promise for human health, clean energy and a
cleaner environment.”
Francis Collins, a physician-geneticist,
practiced medicine at North Carolina Memorial Hospital. Following
a fellowship in human genetics at the Yale Medical School,
he joined the faculty at the University of Michigan. His
research there led to the identification of genes responsible for
cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis, Huntington's disease and, this
year, the gene that causes Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome,
a disorder that causes the most dramatic form of premature aging. Collins
joined NIH in 1993 to become director of the National Center for
Human Genome Research which became NHGRI in 1997. As director, Collins
founded the Division of Intramural Research and oversees the International
Human Genome Sequencing Consortium. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine and
the National Academy of Sciences.
Aristides Patrinos, PhD., has been a researcher
at the department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Brookhaven
National Laboratory and worked at the Environmental Protection Agency
prior to joining DOE in 1986. He has headed the Office
of Biological and Environmental Research since 1993. Patrinos
oversees research activities including the Genomes to Life program,
structural biology, nuclear medicine and health effects, global environmental
change and basic research underpinning DOE's environmental restoration
effort. He is a member of the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological
Society and the Greek Technical Society.
Secretary Abraham most recently gave the
Gold Award in 2002 to Dr. Edward Teller, director emeritus of the
department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Media Contact(s):
Jeff Sherwood, 202/586-5806
Number: R-03-203
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