Spotlight

Ten postdoctoral researchers and graduate students were honored at the third annual Salk Women & Science Special Awards Initiative ceremony. Each received a grant ranging from $10,000 to $20,000 from the funds specifically raised to help support female scientists conducting high-risk research projects. Salk President Elizabeth Blackburn hosted the March 29 forum, which began with a panel discussion moderated by Rebecca Newman, vice president, External Relations, on the importance of female leadership in science, technology and business. The honorees were: Ceyda Coruh, Graziana Gatto, Claire Geddes, Silvana Konermann, Sara Linker, Hermina Nedelescu, Annie Rathore, Cynthia Reyes, Maya Ridinger and Swati Tyagi.

Eiman Azim, assistant professor in Salk’s Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory, has been named both a Searle Scholar, which each year is awarded to only 15 researchers in the fields of chemical and biological sciences, and a Pew Scholar in the Biological Sciences. Of the 22 researchers named Pew Scholars, Azim is one of a subset of five selected as Kathryn W. Davis Aging Brain Scholars. The Searle award provides $300,000 to support scientific research for each scholar over the next three years, while the Pew award provides $240,000 over four years “to investigate the world’s most pressing health problems.” Azim will use the dual awards to explore the function of a set of neural circuits in the spinal cord thought to convey movement-related information.

Salk Professor Tony Hunter traveled to Stockholm, Sweden, to accept the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ inaugural Sjöberg Prize for Cancer Research. He was awarded $500,000 as part of the $1 million prize for “groundbreaking studies of cellular processes that have led to the development of new and effective cancer drugs.” The prize ceremony was held during the Academy’s annual meeting on March 31 in the presence of His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen of Sweden.

The Salk Institute’s Waitt Advanced Biophotonics Center and Zeiss, a global company based in Germany that develops cutting-edge optical and optoelectronic technologies, announced a global partnership on June 5, 2017, to accelerate the frontiers of microscopy and imaging technologies. The partnership will enable the Waitt Center to access Zeiss’ state-of-the-art technology before it’s commercially available. Zeiss will collaborate with Salk scientists to receive critical feedback on challenging imaging needs to further push the boundaries of imaging technologies to new frontiers.

The Salk Institute Board of Trustees welcomed its newest members, Jay T. Flatley, MS, and Joon Yun, MD. Flatley, as a former CEO of Illumina, brings deep experience in biotechnology and healthcare to bear on his new role at Salk. Yun joins Salk’s Board with significant expertise in healthcare and finance. As managing partner and president of investment management firm Palo Alto Investors, LLC, he oversees $2 billion in assets invested in healthcare. Yun is also board-certified in radiology.

Janelle Ayres and Axel Nimmerjahn were each promoted to the rank of associate professor. Ayres, who conducts research in the Nomis Foundation Laboratories for Immunobiology and Microbial Pathogenesis, studies how the body controls and repairs the collateral damage generated during interactions with harmful microbes. Nimmerjahn, who is a member of the Waitt Advanced Biophotonics Center, develops and uses novel imaging approaches to explore the role of glial cells, which carry out critical activities in the central nervous system such as sensing and minimizing damage.