Caltech Professor Receives Ellison Award

PASADENA, Calif.—Giuseppe Attardi, the California Institute of Technology's Grace C. Steele Professor of Molecular Biology, has received the Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar Award. The award is for $935,584 over four years.

Attardi's work encompasses research in the area of aging and in the detection of DNA that affects the aging processes. He is responsible for the discovery and development of new genetic research techniques that are used by laboratories internationally.

Attardi's career spans nearly a half century, including 35 years at Caltech. Prior to joining the Caltech faculty in 1963, Attardi was an assistant professor in histology and general embryology at the University of Padua, Italy. He received his MD from the University of Padua in 1947.

Throughout his career, Attardi has received numerous distinguished honors and awards.

The Ellison Medical Foundation is a nonprofit corporation that was established by a gift from Mr. Lawrence J. Ellison to support basic biomedical research on aging, relevant to understanding aging processes and age-related diseases and disabilities. The Ellison Medical Foundation stimulates basic biomedical research in multiple disciplines including molecular genetics, cell cycle regulation, cellular differentiation, genetic epidemiology, immunology, gene/environment and gene/gene interactions, metabolism, endocrinology, signal transduction, and integrative physiology. Through various award mechanisms, including the Senior Scholar and New Scholar Awards programs, the foundation fosters research by means of grants-in-aid to investigators at universities and laboratories within the United States.

Contact: Deborah Williams-Hedges (626) 395-3227 debwms@caltech.edu

Visit the Caltech Media Relations Web site at: http://www.caltech.edu/~media