Botstein to receive genetics prize

David Botstein, the incoming director of the Lewis-Sigler Institute of Integrated Genomics, has been named winner of the 2003 Genetics Prize by the Peter Gruber Foundation. Botstein will become the third recipient of the $150,000 prize, to be awarded on July 10 at a meeting of the International Congress of Genetics in Melbourne, Australia.

Botstein is one of the most prominent geneticists of the 20th century, President Tilghman said. "The thing that characterizes him as distinct is how many different fields he has made contributions in," she said.

Botstein's achievements — which includes innovations leading to the landmark Human Genome Project — will be a driving force furthering genetics research.

Having done background work on bacterial genetics, Botstein used yeast as a powerful tool for identifying fundamental mechanisms in all organisms. Botstein made what Tilghman calls an "incredibly seminal contribution" to the world of genetics.

"In 1980, he made certainly his most lasting contribution when he suggested an entirely new way of thinking about human genetics in the new field of disease genes," Tilghman said.

Botstein went on to become a leader in the world of genomics, sequencing the yeast genome and setting up an organism database, she said. The database has been widely copied by other geneticists to log nearly all known information about the organisms they are studying, making his impact on the field enormous.

Most recently, Botstein has focused his research on cancer-causing genes. While he intends to continue this work in the lab at Princeton, his educational priorities include teaching students to focus on applications of laboratory knowledge in the real world, according to a University press release.

Interdisciplinary studies have been a hallmark Botstein's career, and he looks to pass that on to his students when he arrives at Princeton July 1. By asking his students to use the information gained from gene sequencing and to apply it on a global scale, Botstein employs statistics, computing and microbiology along with genetics, according to a University press release.

Botstein has long been a recognized educator and researcher, balancing the stated goals of the University: to focus on undergraduate education while maintaining itself as a top-tier research institution.

"He really is a visionary leader," Tilghman said, "and the really exciting thing about him is not that he is a great scientist, but that he passionately cares about education."

Botstein was traveling and could not be reached yesterday.