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Harvard geneticist wins prize

E-mail | Print | Comments () Posted by Elizabeth Cooney April 14, 2008 09:45 AM

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charles%20lee%2085.bmp For his discovery that the human genome carries far more variation than previously thought, a Harvard researcher has won what is called the Korean equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

Charles Lee (left), 38, a researcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and the Broad Institute, will receive the 2008 Ho-Am Prize in Medicine. The prize, established in 1990 by technology giant the Samsung Group, marks achievement by people of Korean ethnic origin in five disciplines. Each prize, to be awarded in Seoul in June, includes about $200,000.

Lee's 2004 work in human genetics overturned the idea that people had differences of less than 0.1 percent between their genomes. Instead, Lee's lab found hundreds of DNA stretches that were different, containing duplications or deletions of DNA segments. Extra or missing copies of DNA segments account for more than 18 percent of the human genome, it is now estimated.

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White Coat Notes covers the latest from the health care industry, hospitals, doctors offices, labs, insurers, and the corridors of government. Chelsea Conaboy previously covered health care for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Write her at cconaboy@boston.com. Follow her on Twitter: @cconaboy.

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