2 October 2006

Sir Philip Cohen to Receive the Rolf Luft Award

Sir Philip Cohen, Director of the Medical Research Council Protein Phosphorylation Unit and Director of Research in the College of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee, has been awarded the prestigious 2006 Rolf Luft Award, which he will receive tomorow, October 3rd, in Stockholm, Sweden.

The Prize was created in 2000 in honour of Professor Rolf Luft, Sweden’s most famous endocrinologist, and is awarded by the Karoslinka Institute.

Sir Philip was awarded the Prize for his ground-breaking research into the role of Protein Phosphorylation in Cell Regulation and Human Disease, especially his contributions to the understanding of how insulin regulates glucose metabolism and the implications of this research for the development of improved drugs to treat Diabetes.

Commenting on the award, Sir Philip expressed his surprise at receiving the honour. "Usually an award like this does not come as a total surprise because one knows that someone has put you forward for the prize. However, on this occasion I had no idea that I had even been nominated and still have no idea who proposed me."

"Nevertheless, it is a great honour to have received this award which I am happy to receive on behalf of the many postdoctoral researchers and Ph.D. students who helped me to understand insulin’s mode of action between the years 1973 and 1997."

Previous winners of the award include Jeffrey Friedman of the Rockefeller University, New York, for the discovery of the appetite-controlling hormone leptin, Ronald Kahn, the Director of the Joslin Diabetes Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, for discovering the biological activity of the insulin receptor and Steven O’Rahilly, of the Department of Clinical Biochemistry of the University of Cambridge, UK, for the identifying genes that control obesity.

Born in Stockholm in 1914, Rolf Luft made many seminal discoveries in the field of endocrinology. These included solving the problem of where androgens are made and how a lack of these hormones causes Addison’s disease, the discovery of the beneficial effect of the hormone ACTH for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, and the discovery of the first disease of energy production, now called Luft’s disease.

Aged 92 and still in good health, Rolf Luft will attend the Award Ceremony and the lecture that Sir Philip will give which is entitled “From insulin signalling to the regulation of cytokine production by pathogens.

NOTES TO EDITORS

* The Medical Research Council Protein Phosphorylation Unit, based at the University of Dundee, was established in October 1990. The Unit's work has implications for understanding cancers, diabetes, chronic inflammatory conditions and other diseases. It led to the establishment of the Division of Signal Transduction Therapy (DSTT) in the College of Life Sciences, a collaboration with some of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies which was awarded the Queens Anniversary Prize for Higher Education in 2006

* The Medical Research Council: The Medical Research Council (MRC) is funded by the UK tax-payer. It aims to improve human health. The research it supports and the scientists it trains meet the needs of the health services, the pharmaceutical and other health-related industries and universities. The MRC has funded work which has led to some of the most significant discoveries and achievements in medicine in the UK. http://www.mrc.ac.uk

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