News Release

Dr. George Stark receives 2011 Herbert Tabor/Journal of Biological Chemistry Lectureship from ASBMB

Grant and Award Announcement

American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) has announced that George R. Stark, Ph.D., the distinguished scientist of the Cleveland Clinic's Lerner Research Institute and emeritus professor of genetics at Case Western Reserve University, is the recipient of the society's 2011 Herbert Tabor/Journal of Biological Chemistry lectureship.

The lectureship recognizes outstanding lifetime scientific achievements and was established to honor the many contributions of Dr. Herbert Tabor to both the society and the journal, for which he has served as editor for nearly 40 years.

Stark will be the eighth person so honored, joining a luminous group of recipients that includes the 2010 awardee, Nobel laureate Phillip A. Sharp.

"George Stark has been a leader and pioneer in basic and applied research," said Dr. Charles E. Samuel, the Charles A. Storke II professor of biochemistry and virology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a longtime colleague of Stark's. "He has been a superb scientist personifying many of the characteristics of Herb Tabor. Recognition with our lectureship would be a most fitting tribute to Stark's numerous seminal contributions."

Those contributions span many fields, influencing the understanding not only of basic biochemistry, but also the specialized fields of gene regulation and cell signaling, which have further implications for immunity and cancer. Those landmark discoveries began during his early work on enzyme mechanisms and protein chemistry, at which time he developed the foundational Northern and Western techniques that detect specific nucleic acids and proteins, respectively.

Although initially designed for his particular studies, the techniques are now used worldwide in research and clinical scenarios. More recently, Stark co-discovered gene amplification in mammalian cells and the Jak-Stat signaling cascade, a major pathway that mediates cellular responses to signals sent by the immune system.

A native of New York City, Stark earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from Columbia University in 1959. He then served as a research associate and assistant professor at Rockefeller University alongside renowned biochemists William Stein and Sanford Moore. After moving to Stanford University in 1963, he became a full professor in 1971. From 1983 to 1992, he worked at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London (now Cancer Research UK) as a senior scientist and later as the associate director of research. In 1992, he relocated to Cleveland Clinic, where he continues his research today.

Stark will present his award lecture at ASBMB's annual meeting's opening session, which will be held at 6 p.m. Saturday, April 9, 2011, in Washington, D.C.

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