Participant Awards on behalf of
Dr. Henri Brunengraber and Dr. Robert Wolfe
Course participants have an opportunity to receive an award in honor of two luminaries in the field of isotope use in biology, Dr. Henri Brunengraber and Dr. Robert Wolfe. At the end of the week-long course, the awards will be given to a course participant (graduate student, postdoctoral or medical fellow, or early career faculty), engaged in research utilizing isotopes that suggests distinctive promise in making discoveries in biology, biochemistry, physiology, pathology, and medicine. The impact of a participant's recent publications in the field utilizing isotopes may also be considered.
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The announcement of the winners will be made Friday morning.
A certificate will be given the trainee, along with a $500 award.
Henri Brunengraber Innovative Basic Science Award
This award will be given to a course participant whose work aims to answer fundamental questions in biology. Research may focus on use of cell, animal, and organ models, discovery of novel molecular and biochemical controls of metabolism, along with development of methodological and technical advancements in isotope and mass spectrometry use.
Robert Wolfe Human Metabolism Award
This award will be given to a course participant utilizing isotopes to discover physiological, genomic, and biochemical mechanisms in humans. Consideration will include research studies that focus on normal growth and development, aging, alterations in flux in health and disease states, and mechanisms by which disease treatments improve the human condition.
About the Honorees
Dr. Henri Brunengraber
Henri Brunengraber received his MD (1968) and PhD (1977) from the Free University of Brussels. He then performed postdoctoral training with John M. Lowenstein at Brandeis University where he focused on 3-hydroxysterol synthesis in the liver. Over the past 50 years, Dr. Brunengraber's research has concentrated on metabolic regulation investigated in isolated cells and perfused organs by a combination of metabolomics and stable isotopic technologies based on mass spectrometry. In 1994, Dr. Brunengraber discovered what is now called the reductive metabolism of glutamine, which plays an important role in the metabolism of cancer cells. With funding from the NIH, Case Western Reserve University, and Lerner Research Institute, his research uncovered new metabolic pathways and new regulatory mechanisms in the areas of pancreatic cancer diabetic nephropathy, the preservation of perfused limbs in preparation to transplantation, and the pathobiochemistry of retinopathy of prematurity and macular degeneration. Dr. Brunengraber is a recipient of an Established Investigator Award from the American Heart Association.
Dr. Robert Wolfe
Robert R. Wolfe received his PhD in 1974 studying with Steven Horvath at the U.C. Santa Barbara’s Institute of Environmental Stress. Following this, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Louisiana State University's Medical School in the laboratory of physiologist Dr. Harvey I. Miller. Dr. Wolfe then served as a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and the UT Medical Branch at Galveston, where he held the John H. Sealy Distinguished Chair in Clinical Research. His research has been supported by National Institutes of Health, National Space Biomedical Institute, U.S. Department of Defense, The U.S. Department of Agriculture, as well as the U.S. and International Olympic Committees. Dr. Wolfe’s expertise is on the regulation of muscle metabolism, particularly as affected by aging and stressors such as injury, sepsis and cancer. He has developed models using stable isotopes to quantify a variety of metabolic processes in human subjects including the oxidation and production of fatty acids, various aspects of carbohydrate metabolism, and the rates of muscle protein synthesis, breakdown, and the transport of amino acids between blood and muscle tissue. Dr. Wolfe is the author of the popular textbook entitled, Isotope tracers in metabolic research (Wiley-Liss Publisher), which originally served as the basis for the development and the continued reference for the current course.
