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