Harvard geneticist wins prize
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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Elizabeth Cooney is a former
health reporter for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, where she also was a
business reporter and an editor. Earlier in her career, she edited medical
books and journals at Little, Brown, and worked for Boston magazine.Boston Globe Health and Science staff:
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What! You mean Craig Ventner missed all the important variation?
Who would have thought...
Good Job Charles. Glad to see good work is still valued some times. Not valued as highly as splashy headlines and sweeping statements that turn out to be wrong later, but still valued.