Dario Alessi from the Medical Research Council Protein Phosphorylation Unit based at the University of Dundee has been awarded a Pfizer Academic Award - his third award this year and sixth in a series of awards for this top Dundee scientist.
Dario, Principal Investigator in the MRC Unit was selected for the Pfizer Award for his groundbreaking work in the fight against diabetes. Dario leads a research team in biochemical studies of insulin-regulated signalling transduction pathways.
The Academic Awards are made based on work published in the previous two years that is novel and leading in its field. Dario is one of only 4 recipients of an Academic Award this year which Pfizer's Sandwich Research and Development site have presented annually since 1983, to support young scientists who have carried out significant research at European Universities or equivalent Institutions. The Academic Awards cross all scientific disciplines with potential applications in the search for human or animal health medicines. The Award is for £12,000.
Dario was most recently awarded Royal Society of Edinburgh's Makdougall Brisbane prize for his discovery and characterisation of PDK1, the "missing link" in insulin signal transduction, and the Young Investigator G.B. Morgagni Prize 2002 for outstanding achievements in the field of metabolism. He was also elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh earlier this year.
He won the Eppendorf Young European scientist of the year in 2000, and is also one of eight members of the School of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee to win the Colworth medal in 1999 for young scientists under the age of 36.
Pfizer, with headquarters in New York, is one of the largest research-based international pharmaceutical companies. Its research division is the largest private biomedical R&D operation in the world, with 12,000 scientists and an R&D budget this year of $5.3 billion. In the UK Pfizer employs some 5,500 people, engaged in research and development, manufacture and marketing of human and animal medicines. Of the six most widely used medicines in the world that were discovered in UK laboratories, four came from the Pfizer R&D site in Sandwich, Kent