At their June 2009 meeting, the AGA Council of the American Genetic Association granted the annual Stephen J. O'Brien Award for best student-authored article published in Journal of Heredity’s 2008 volume. The award honors Dr. Stephen J. O’Brien, Chief of the National Cancer Institute’s Laboratory of Genomic Diversity and head of the Section of Genetics, who served as Editor-In-Chief for the Journal from 1987-2007.

The Council voted to award two young researchers:

Mrs. Maya Sapir-Mir, for her paper Molecular Aspects of Anthocyanin fruit Tomato in Relation to high pigment-1 (supervisors, Dr. Ilan Levin and Dr. Michal Oren-Shamir, Israeli Agriculture Research Center); and

Dr. Beiru Zhang, for Characterization of the Cheetah Serum Amyloid A1 Gene (supervisor, Dr. Masayuki Mori, Shinshu University Graduate School of Medicine).

The Award Committee, in presenting their recommendation to Council, had the following comments:

“We evaluated whether candidate articles were substantial, novel and synthetic in their approaches. The tomato study was well documented, and used a nice mix of classical and molecular genetics, and biochemical and breeding tools. It is a good study of comparative genomics, phenotype changes and function, with health benefits. The cheetah study was highly detailed and very appropriate for this award, given Dr. O’Brien’s interest in cheetah genetics and conservation. It offered a nice depiction of a candidate gene for inflammatory disease, and how the study of endangered species genetics includes biomedical benefits. Both articles are excellent, and we are pleased to recommend the award for both student authors.”

The award includes a $1,000 prize for each recipient, as well as a one-year AGA membership and subscription to the Journal of Heredity.

The Stephen J. O'Brien Award for the best student paper published in the Journal of Heredity the previous year is awarded at the annual meeting of the AGA in June and includes a cash prize of $1,000. The award is intended to honor Dr. O'Brien's many years of exemplary service as Chief Editor of the Journal of Heredity. Papers are eligible for the 2010 award if the first author was a registered student at the time of manuscript submission and if the article is published in Volume 100 of the Journal of Heredity.

Please contact Anjanette Baker, Managing Editor (agajoh@oregonstate.edu) regarding candidates.

The American Genetics Association grants awards each year to AGA members for support of special events that further the purposes of the Association. Eligible events include specialized workshops open to Association members in areas of great current interest and short courses in some aspect of organismal genetics, but any event that would advance the purpose of the Association is eligible for support.

Please contact Anjanette Baker, Managing Editor (agajoh@oregonstate.edu) for further details.