Dr Simon Boulton has won the 2008 Eppendorf Young European Investigator Award for his research into DNA damage.
The Eppendorf Young European Investigator Award, in partnership with the Nature scientific journal, honours outstanding work in biomedical research for those 35 years of age and under.
Boulton, 35, of the London Research Institute (Clare Hall Laboratories, South Mimms, Hertfordshire, UK) won the award for research into SPAR1, a recently discovered helicase.
Boulton's findings indicate SPAR1 plays a key role in repairing double-stranded DNA breaks through homologous recombination (HRC).
He discovered that mice with deactivated SPAR1 died of dramatic genome instability after 11 days, which indicated it was caused by deregulation of HRC, due to missing SPAR1.
Such mechanisms play an important role in the development of certain tumours and, based on a detailed insight into this SPAR1 function, therapeutic approaches to combat specific tumours have already been developed.
A prospective therapeutic drug is already being clinically tested.
The award was presented on 20 November during a gala dinner in Dusseldorf, Germany.
Keynote speakers included: Dr Michael Schroeder, Eppendorf AG board member, and Professor Kai Simons, director of the Max-Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany.
