April 11, 2000
Clinton names Seattle researchers as Presidential Early Career Award winners
President Clinton today named University of Washington faculty members Nathan Mantua, a climate scientist, and Dr. David W. Russell, an assistant professor of medicine, as winners of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers. A recipient with Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Cecilia Moens, also holds an affiliate faculty appointment at the UW.
Given to 60 individuals, the award is the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on young professionals at the outset of their independent research careers, according to a press release from the White House. Recipients receive five-year research grants.
Nathan Mantua
Mantua of Seattle, a research scientist with the Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Oceans based at the UW, is part of a research group helping regional policy makers and citizens understand the ways climate change and variability could affect water supply and other natural resources, such as fisheries. Mantua was the lead author of an influential paper describing the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a climate cycle that influences both Alaska and Northwest salmon. He has since co-authored several articles that examine the ways climate affects other marine ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest, and he continues to work with fishery scientists and managers to better understand the variations in Pacific salmon abundance along the entire West coast.
He will receive $10,000 each of the next five years from the Department of Commerce.
David W. Russell
Russell of Seattle is an assistant professor of medicine (hematology) who is doing pioneering work in gene therapy. This involves the successful use of a modified virus to perform a novel method of gene replacement that could be an important step toward overcoming obstacles to efficient gene therapy.
Researchers have previously focused on gene addition, using a variety of modified viruses as vectors (or transport vehicles) to “infect” and insert the proper genetic material into cell nuclei. While the proper genetic material is inserted, it goes to random locations on the chromosome, and the faulty genetic material also remains.
By contrast, Russell was able to achieve efficient gene correction. He succeeded in targeting the exact location of the mutated gene on the chromosome and replacing it with the correct genetic material present in the viral vector, at exactly the right location.
His award is from National Institutes of Health.
Cecilia Moens
Moens of Seattle, a research scientist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, uses zebrafish as a model for human genetics. Understanding such things as how genes are expressed and drive development in zebrafish could shed light on the genetics of cancer as well as craniofacial defects in humans. A mutant gene responsible for brain defects in zebrafish, for example, has a genetic counterpart in chicks that not only affects brain segmentation but also causes cancer. Many of the genes necessary for embryonic development, which are meant to lie dormant during adulthood, are the same ones that later mutate and produce uncontrolled cell growth in cancer.
Her award is from the National Institutes of Health.
