ISAR ANNOUNCES THE 2021 WILLIAM PRUSOFF AWARDEE, DR. Priscilla Yang
The ISAR major awards, including the William Prusoff Memorial Award, named in memory of William Prusoff, who synthesized the first specific antiviral, 5-iododeoxyuridine
and co-developed staduvine (D4T), are one of the highlights of every ICAR. Hybrid 2022 ICAR Seattle will not be an exception and includes an outstanding roster of major awardees who will be giving their keynote lectures next March.
The William Prusoff Memorial Award is funded by a generous endowment from Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), which covers the cash award, the administrative fees, travel and per diem for the awardee, and a memorial plaque. This is the second oldest major ISAR award, first awarded in 2001 to Professor Chris McGuigan, who developed the ProTides prodrug technology. The Award recognizes an outstanding young scientist (not older than 45 years old) who has demonstrated dedication and excellence in antiviral research and development and shows potential to continue making significant contributions to the field, as well as to the society. In fact, three previous awardees have later become ISAR presidents, and many others have become heavily involved with the society in many other roles. The Award aims to encourage and support more junior investigators in the field and thus should not be granted to an already fully developed antiviral researcher.
The list of inductees includes many a person who has made tremendous contributions to the antiviral field, including to name a fewRalf Bartenschlager, Tomas Cihlar, Chris Meier, Bruno Canard, the late Mark Prichard, Erica Ollmann-Saphire, and Jason McLellan.
It is our pleasure to introduce now ISAR’s 2022 William Prusoff Memorial Awardee, Dr. Priscilla Yang, Ph.D., Stanford University. Dr. Yang becomes an ISAR double-awardee since she was previously the recipient of the inaugural ICAR Women in Science Award in 2017.
Priscilla earned her PhDin Bio-organic Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley and then completed her postdoctoral training in viral immunology a
t Scripps Research. She started her independent career at Harvard Medical School, where her laboratory combined chemical and pharmacological approaches to address fundamental and translational problems in virology. She is currently Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and the Stanford University School of Medicine where she focuses on leading and mentoring a multidisciplinary group of scientists focused on discovery and validation of new antiviral targets; identifying new strategies to achieve broad-spectrum activity and to avoid antiviral resistance; and investigating the function of lipid membranes in RNA virus replication. She is a strong advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion in science.
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Yang on receiving the William Prusoff Memorial Award, and in thanking Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) for generous endowing this award, which supports and encourages up and coming outstanding researchers in the antiviral field.
As all other awardees, and many other world-leaders in antiviral discovery, research and development, Dr. Yang will deliver her keynote award lecture at the upcoming hybrid ICAR2022 in Seattle, coming March 21-25. Register now not to miss yet another outstanding talk by a researcher who beyond her significant contributions to the antiviral field.
December 29, 2021