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| Michael Crickmore awarded the 2007 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award |
Michael Crickmore,
a graduate student in the Department of Biological Sciences, has been awarded
the 2007 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award from the Fred Hutchison
Cancer Center in Seattle, WA. This award recognizes outstanding
achievement during graduate studies in the biological sciences.
Crickmore's studies in the fruit fly - carried out in the laboratory of Richard
Mann- explored a fundamental issue in development and cancer: the molecular
control of cell number, to yield an organ of the appropriate size. Using
the fly wing as a model organ, Crickmore discovered that, during development, cell number can be controlled by altering the ability of signaling molecules -
morphogens- to move across the developing wing. Because of the strong
conservation of gene functions from fly to man, morphogen signaling landscapes
may underlie variations in size throughout the animal kingdom. The molecular
signaling pathways self-regulate their expression, to insure reliability in the
sizes of organs and perhaps entire animals.
The award is given in honor of Hal Weintraub, a pioneering developmental molecular biologist who died of brain cancer in 1995 at the age of 49; it is one of the most prestigious graduate student awards in the United States. The award symposium will take place on May 4–5, 2007, at the Fred Hutchinson Center's Robert W. Day Campus.
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