Eppendorf has presented its Young Investigator Award 2009 to Dr Oscar Fernandez-Capetillo from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), Madrid.
The Eppendorf Award for Young European Investigators is presented, in partnership with the scientific journal Nature, to European scientists up to the age of 35.
Dr Oscar Fernandez-Capetillo won the prize for research showing that endogenous DNA damage can, through replicative stress (RS), lead to accelerated ageing.
Replicative stress is intrinsically associated with DNA replication and prevented mainly by the ATR kinase.
By developing a murine model of the Seckel syndrome characterised by a severe deficiency in ATR, it was shown that Seckel mice suffer high levels of RS during embryogenesis and age rapidly because of accumulating DNA damage.
Dr Oscar Fernandez-Capetillo's results support the contention that RS, particularly in utero, contributes to the onset of ageing in postnatal life, this being balanced by the activities of the checkpoint proteins ATR and p53.
