WINNERS

2010 Biology Award, sponsored by Roche

Roberto Danovaro, Polytechnic University of Marche, Italy
The first metazoa living in permanently anoxic conditions BMC Biology 2010, 8:30 (6 April 2010)

Professor Roberto Danovaro
Roberto Danovaro was born in Genoa where he obtained his degrees in Marine Biology. He studied a PhD at the University of Pisa in 1992 and became Assistant professor at the University of Ancona in 1994 and Associate Professor at the University of Bari in 1998.

In 2001 Roberto moved to Polytechnic University of Marche where he worked as full professor. until 2005 when he took up the post of Director of the Department of Marine Sciences, full Professor in Marine Biology and Ecology.

Roberto's research is focused on the development of a sin-ecologic and inter-disciplinary approach devoted to the study of the deep-sea biology, the identification of the links between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning and the production of goods and services for an eco-sustainable development.

Dr Kenta Asahina, California Institute of Technology
A circuit supporting concentration-invariant odor perception in Drosophila Kenta Asahina, Matthieu Louis, Silvia Piccinotti and Leslie B Vosshall
Journal of Biology 2009, 8:9 (26 January 2009)

Kenta Asahina Ph.D.
I was born on April 23rd, 1979 in Chiba, Japan. After receiving B.S. in zoology from Department of Science at the University of Tokyo on 1998, I moved to the United States and started doctoral studies in the Rockefeller University, New York. Under supervision of Dr. Leslie Vosshall, I received Ph.D. on 2008 for genetic and physiological study of the olfactory system of the Drosophila larva. Since 2008, I have been a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. David Anderson at California Institute of Technology, conducting research on the genetic and neuronal basis of the fly aggressive behavior.

Basil Honegger, University of Zürich
Imp-L2, a putative homolog of vertebrate IGF-binding protein 7, counteracts insulin signaling in Drosophila and is essential for starvation resistance Honegger B, Galic M, Köhler K, Wittwer F, Brogiolo W, Hafen E, Stocker H
Journal of Biology 2008, 7:10 (15 April 2008)

Basil Honegger, PhD
I was born (1977) and raised in Zürich Switzerland where I started my Biology study in 1997. I completed the study in June 2002 with a diploma thesis in Ernst Hafens lab already about Imp-L2. In september 2002 I started the PhD in Ernst's lab. I finished the PhD in 2006. After the PhD thesis I changed from research to science journalism. Since November 2006 I'm working for the Swiss television first in a science and now in a medical broadcast. My scientific interests are rather broad. Since I'm working in journalism I'm much more in contact with different topics. The latest, which I found really interesting were tissue engineering of heart valves and intestinal bacteria and their influence on the immune system. My hobbies are scuba diving, floorhockey and hiking.

Dynamic rerouting of the carbohydrate flux is key to counteracting oxidative stressJournal of Biology 2007, 6:10 (21 December 2007)

Markus Ralser, PhD
Markus is a Junior Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics. His main research interest is the behaviour and function of small-molecule dynamics, especially when related to molecular metabolic pathways in living cells.

Christina Jones, University of Liverpool, UK
Intensive care diaries reduce new onset post traumatic stress disorder following critical illness: a randomised, controlled trial Critical Care 2010, 14:R168 (15 September 2010)

Dr Christina Jones
Dr Christina Jones runs the counselling and rehabilitation service for ICU patients at Whiston Hospital, Liverpool, as well as organising the follow-up clinic, seeing patients on the wards and in their own homes. Her PhD work of Dr Christina Jones was to design and test a physical and psychological rehabilitation package for ICU patients to take home with them. In addition much of her research has examined the patients’ psychological recovery and the impact of delusional memories for ICU, particularly on the development of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Her latest research has examined the impact of ICU diaries on the later incidence of PTSD in a multinational study.

Dr Godfrey Woelk, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Translating research into policy: lessons learned from eclampsia treatment and malaria control in three southern African countries Godfrey Woelk, Karen Daniels, Julie Cliff, Simon Lewin, Esperança Sevene, Benedita Fernandes, Alda Mariano, Sheillah Matinhure, Andrew D Oxman, John N Lavis and Cecilia Stålsby Lundborg
Journal of Health Research Policy and Systems 2009, 7:31 (30 December 2009)

Godfrey B. Woelk Ph.D.
Godfrey B. Woelk is a Senior Research Epidemiologist in the International Health Program within RTI International’s Social, Statistical and Environmental Sciences Division, and Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Health Education and Behavior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to joining RTI two and half years ago, Dr. Woelk was Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Community Medicine, University of Zimbabwe College of Health Sciences. He was also previously Department Chair, and his areas of research include HIV and AIDS prevention and care, as well as maternal health, hypertensive diseases of pregnancy, child health, and knowledge translation. Dr. Woelk collaborated on a number of multi-country trials and studies.

Weiqi Yan and Guomin Xiao, Zhejiang University
Improved outcomes from the administration of progesterone for patients with acute severe traumatic brain injury: a randomized controlled trial Xiao G, Wei J, Yan W, Wang W, Lu Z
Critical Care 2008, 12:R61 (30 April 2008)

Weiqi Yan, MD, PhD
Dr. Yan joined Medical College, Zhejiang University of China from Canada as a Professor in 2004 and worked in the Centre for Clinical Research at The Second Affiliated Hospital as Director and Senior Clinician since 2005. Professor Yan is involved in a number of clinical studies aimed at development of new therapy on CNS & neurological disorders and cancer using drug target, stem cell and nanotechnology. His research interests also include early detection and intervention in populations for certain sarcoma and arthritis. Professor Yan's personal hobbies are playing flute and volleyball.

Endometrial regenerative cells: A novel stem cell populationJournal of Translational Medicine 2007, 5:57 (15 November 2007)

Dr Xiaolong Meng
Xiaolong came to Wichita, Kansas, USA and worked in the Bio-Communications Research Institute, a branch of The Center for the Improvement of Human Functioning International, Inc. He has been working in the Institute for more than 16 years. His research interests have focused on how cancer and nutrients are related.

Open Data Award, sponsored by Microsoft Research

Tommi Nyman, University of Eastern Finland, Finland
How common is ecological speciation in plant-feeding insects? A 'Higher' Nematinae perspective BMC Evolutionary Biology 2010, 10:266 (1 September 2010)

Dr Tommi Nyman
Tommi Nyman currently works as an Academy Research Fellow at the Department of Biology at the University of Eastern Finland in Joensuu. He earned an M.Sc. degree in Joensuu in 1996 and completed his Ph.D. in 2000. His main research interest revolves around northern sawflies, which have proven to be a surprisingly versatile group for coevolutionary research, particularly striving to use molecular-phylogenetic trees to answer various coevolutionary and macroevolutionary questions.

Dr Yoosook Lee, Veterinary Medicine, UC Davis
Ecological and genetic relationships of the Forest-M form among chromosomal and molecular forms of the malaria vector Anopheles gambiae sensu stricto Yoosook Lee, Anthony J Cornel, Claudio R Meneses, Abdrahamane Fofana, Aurélie G Andrianarivo, Rory D McAbee, Etienne Fondjo, Sekou F Traoré and Gregory C Lanzaro
Malaria Journal 2009, 8:75 (21 April 2009)

Yoosook Lee Ph.D.
Yoosook Lee, did her 2000. BS in the Dept. of Life Science at POSTECH, South Korea. In 2006 she received her PhD in Biology at UCLA, USA (Advisor : Charles E. Taylor, Ph.D.). From 2007 until present she is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Dept. of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology at the School of Veterinary Medicine, UC Davis (Advisor: Gregory C Lanzaro, Ph.D). Lee’s interest areas include population genetics of malaria vector in Africa. Lee developed and is currently maintaining PopI, an individual-level population genomic database for sharing genetic, meteorology, ecology data with vector biologists community at large. She is married to Travis C Collier.

Michael J Keogh, Lincoln County Hospital, UK
Statin-associated weakness in myasthenia gravis: a case report Journal of Medical Case Reports 2010, 4:61 (20 February 2010)

Dr Michael Keogh
Michael Keogh is currently an Academic Clinical Fellow at the University of Newcastle in the UK. He graduated in Biomedical Sciences and in Medicine from the University of Nottingham, before beginning his clinical training in the East Midlands region of England. His academic pursuits are focussed in the field of neurodegenerative neurology under the supervision of Professor Patrick Chinnery with a particular personal interest in the neurogenetic and mitochondrial aspects of neurodegeneration and early biomarkers of neurological disease. His current research projects include the role of iron in neurodegeneration, and the hereditary movement disorder neuroferritinopathy.

Dr Georgios Labiris, University in Alexandroupolis
Association between isotretinoin use and central retinal vein occlusion in an adolescent with minor predisposition for thrombotic incidents: a case report Georgios Labiris, Andreas Katsanos, Maria Karapetsa, Ioanna Mpanaka and Dimitrios Chatzoulis
Journal of Medical Case Reports 2009, 3:58 (10 February 2009)

Georgios Labiris Ph.D.
Dr Georgios Labiris is a senior lecturer of Ophthalmology at the Democritus University in Alexandroupolis, Greece. He is a graduate of medicine from the Semmelweis University with a postgraduate degree in Healthcare management from the California Coast University, in US. He was awarded his PhD title from the Medical School at the Ioannina University in 2005. Prior to his appointment at the Democritus University in 2008, he served as a consultant of Ophthalmology at the University Hospital of Larissa, in Greece. He authored and co-authored 28 peer-reviewed scientific papers, and he is a reviewer for a series of scientific journals. His scientific interests focus on corneal diseases, refractive surgery, glaucoma and contemporary healthcare management.

Derek Rajakumar, University of Saskatchewan
Mycobacterium tuberculosis monoarthritis in a child Rajakumar D, Rosenberg AM
Pediatric Rheumatology 2008, 6:15 (18 September 2008)

Dr Derek Rajakumar
Dr. Derek Rajakumar graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with a Bachelor and Science Honours degree in Biochemistry in 2002. He then went on to obtain his MD at this institution in 2007, and is currently in his second year of post graduate training in pediatrics in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

A possible new syndrome with growth-hormone secreting pituitary adenoma, colonic polyposis, lipomatosis, lentigines and renal carcinoma in association with familial testicular germ cell malignancy: A case reportJournal of Medical Case Reports 2007, 1:9 (28 March 2007)

Dr Phuong Mai, M.D.
Phuong joined the Clinical Genetics Branch of the NCI Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics as a staff clinician in October 2006. She is involved in a number of epidemiologic and clinical studies aimed at better understanding familial cancer syndromes. Her research interests also include the effects of genetic variations and behavioral factors on cancer risks and early detection and intervention in populations at increased risk for certain cancers, particularly women at increased genetic risk of ovarian cancer.

View Dr Phuong's award acceptance speech from the BioMed Central Research Awards in 2007.

Dr Jean Louis Vincent, Critical Care
Dr Vincent is Professor of intensive care at the University of Brussels and Head of the Department of Intensive Care at the Erasme University Hospital in Brussels. Specialist in Internal Medicine, he spent two years training at the University of Southern California with Prof. Max Harry Weil. Dr. Vincent is the editor-in-chief of "Critical Care" and two other publications and is a member of the Editorial Boards of over 30 journals.

Dr. Vincent is presently Secretary General of the World Federation of Societies of Intensive and Critical Care Medicine. He is a Past-President of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine, the European Shock Society, and the International Sepsis Forum. For 31 years he has organized an International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine which is held every March in Brussels.

Dr Kuan-Teh Jeang

Kuan-Teh Jeang MD, Ph.D.

Kuan-Teh Jeang MD, PhD, is the Chief of the Molecular Virology Section at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology.  He was born in Taiwan, spent his childhood in Libya, and came to the United States at age 12.  He attended university at MIT (Boston, MA), and graduated with MD and PhD degrees from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (Baltimore, MD).  Dr. Jeang’s research interests spanning the past 25 years are in the basic research of HIV-1 gene expression and in HTLV-1 transformation of human cells.  He has published more than 250 peer reviewed articles; and he has edited two editions of the book “HIV-1: Molecular Biology and Pathogenesis” and several other volumes on retroviral biology and oncogenic tumor viruses. 

Dr. Jeang is the current editor-in-chief of Retrovirology; (www.retrovirology.com), a leading peer-reviewed Open Access journal that publishes basic research papers on retroviruses.  He is also an Associate Editor of Cancer Research; and a member of the editorial boards for the Journal of Biological Chemistry and the Journal of Virology.

Dr. Jeang is an elected fellow of the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI), the Association of American Physicians (AAP), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and an Academician of Academia Sinica.  He is currently the president of the Society of Chinese Bioscientists in America (SCBA; www.scbasociety.org), the largest international society of bioscientists of Chinese extraction. 

Dr. Jeang’s wife, Diane is a veterinarian.  They have three children, David, Diana and John.

Chris Arme, Parasites & Vectors
Chris Arme is a parasitologist whose research interests are in the physiology of tapeworms, with particular emphasis on their nutrition and how these parasites interact with the physiological systems of their hosts. Since his doctoral studies at Leeds University he has maintained a special interest in the tapeworm, Ligula intestinalis, and its interactions with the reproductive systems of its fish host. In recognition of this work he was awarded a DSc from Keele University and a DSc honoris causa from the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava. He is a Past-President of the British Society for Parasitology and was an Editor of Parasitology for 19 years. He is now Editor-in-Chief of the online open access journal Parasites & Vectors.

Andrew Waller, Open Access Librarian, University of Calgary
Andrew Waller is the Open Access Librarian in the Scholarly Communication Centre at the University of Calgary, Canada. Andrew is responsible for the Open Access Authors Fund, which has covered over 170 articles for University of Calgary authors since the inception of the Fund in 2008. The Open Access Authors Fund was the first of its kind in Canada and only the sixth in the world. The Fund is one of several programs in the University of Calgary’s open access “suite” including: an institutional repository (the second largest university repository in Canada); an expansive digitization program; Open Access journals and monographs in the University of Calgary Press; and the Synergies project.

Andrew has regularly written on and spoken about open access over the last several years. He is one of the people behind the Open Access Librarian blog and is a Canadian editor for the open access repository for library and information science, E-LIS. He is also Licensing and Negotiation Librarian in the Collections unit in Libraries and Cultural Resources.

University of Zurich

• The University of Zürich is the largest university in Switzerland and has been a leading advocate for open access to research for many years.
• As early as July 2005, Zürich introduced a mandatory policy requiring researchers to deposit published articles in its repository, while also providing encouragement to authors to publish their research articles in fully open access journals. Zürich provides central financial support for authors via participation in membership programs at many open access publishers, including BioMed Central.
• The university also offers one of the best institutional open access information websites, bringing together relevant and up-to-date information on open access for Zürich researchers (including a professionally-produced video on the benefits of the open access model!)

• Researchers from Zürich have published hundreds of articles in BioMed Central journals over the years, and citation analysis shows those articles to be particularly highly cited.

Chinese Academy of Science

• The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) is China’s national academy for science and also operates more than 100 research institutes. Membership of the academy is the highest academic honour for a Chinese scientist, and today there are close to 700 CAS members.

• CAS has shown continued leadership on open access, and this has been reflected in the rapid uptake of open access publishing by Chinese researchers at CAS institutes and elsewhere in China.

• CAS president Lu Yongxiang signed the Berlin Declaration on Open Access in May 2004.
• In June 2005, the CAS National Science Library hosted an International Conference on Strategies and Policies for Open Access to Scientific Information.
• In August 2009 CAS joined forces with BioMed Central to pioneer a new ‘Shared Support Membership model’, whereby researchers own contributions to open access publication fees are supplemented by matching central funds.
• In October 2010, CAS will host the Berlin8 Open Access conference, in Beijing.

Harvard University

• Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and is an internationally renowned leader in research.
• In February 2008, Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted unanimously to adopt a mandatory policy of making published articles freely accessible online, the first such institutional policy at a US university.
• In response to this Faculty resolution, Harvard created a new Office for Scholarly Communication (OSC), responsible for setting up and managing the necessaruy open access repository infrastructure, and monitoring compliance with the open access policy, and encouraging open access publishing.
• The open access mandate introduced by Harvard’s Faculty of Art and Sciences has been extremely influential, encouraging and emboldening other US institutions including MIT, Kansas and Duke University to take similar action. In addition, a further 4 schools at Harvard have since gone on to introduce their own mandates. (Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard Business School, Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government)
• A notable aspect of Harvard’s approach to open access is that it emphasizes the need to find sustainable alternatives to subscriptions in order cover the costs associated with peer-reviewed publication, while avoiding the need to restrict access.
• Specifically, the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity (COPE) launched in September 2009, is an important initiative whose signatories (including Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, Dartmouth and Cornell) commit to provide a mechanism of central funding for open access publishing costs, to ensure that open access journals are not systematically disadvantaged by the library system (which provides central support to traditional journals via subscriptions)
• The Harvard Open-Access Publishing Equity fund (HOPE) is Harvard's implementation of such a central funding mechanism, and allows authors at Harvard to apply for reimbursement of reasonable open access publication fees, where other funding is not available.

University of Nottingham
The University of Nottingham is ranked in the UK's Top 10 and the World's Top 100 universities by the Shanghai Jiao Tong (SJTU) and Times Higher (THE) World University Rankings. More than 90 per cent of research at The University of Nottingham is of international quality, according to RAE 2008, with almost 60 per cent of all research defined as 'world-leading' or 'internationally excellent'. Research Fortnight's analysis of RAE 2008 ranks the University 7th in the UK by research power. In 27 subject areas, the University features in the UK Top Ten, with 14 of those in the Top Five.

The University provides innovative and top quality teaching, undertakes world-changing research, and attracts talented staff and students from 150 nations. Described by The Times as Britain's "only truly global university", it has invested continuously in award-winning campuses in the United Kingdom, China and Malaysia. Twice since 2003 its research and teaching academics have won Nobel Prizes. The University has won the Queen's Award for Enterprise in both 2006 (International Trade) and 2007 (Innovation - School of Pharmacy), and was named 'Entrepreneurial University of the Year' at the Times Higher Education Awards 2008.

Nottingham has pioneered open access developments in the UK in particular and Europe in general. It was the first UK institution to set up a pilot OAI-compliant institutional repository for research outputs in 2001. It was also the first UK institution, more recently, to introduce a central open-access publication fund to enable its authors to pay OA publication fees. Since 2003, it has hosted the SHERPA initiative, a cluster of projects and services focusing on OA repository development. Well-known services such as RoMEO and OpenDOAR are run out of the SHERPA offices at Nottingham. Nottingham has recently further strengthened its work in the area of OA by setting up the new Centre for Research Communications, which will act as a focus for R&D on a wide range of OA-related issues."