Professor Rudolf Jaenisch Receives Max Delbrück Medal
Stem cell researcher Professor Rudolf Jaenisch of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, MA, USA, has been awarded the Max Delbrück Medal for his research on epigenetic mechanisms of gene regulation. These play a vital role in development and can lead to disease if dysfunctional. The study of these mechanisms is especially significant with respect to embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning. In his award lecture “Nuclear Cloning, Embryonic Stem Cells and Cell Therapy: Promise, Problems, Reality” held on December 1, 2006 in Berlin-Buch, Professor Jaenisch referred to the recommendations called for by the German Research Foundation (DFG) two weeks previously, which included revoking the cutoff date for stem cell lines used in research. He described the recommendations as very reasonable and said that, as a researcher, one would wish that politicians would read them and try to understand the issues.