PHILADELPHIA — Virginia M.-Y. Lee, PhD, and John Q. Trojanowski, MD, PhD, co-directors of the Marian S. Ware Alzheimer Drug Discovery Program at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania are co-recipients of the 2014 J. Allyn Taylor International Prize in Medicine. They are being recognized for their “tireless work to find ways to understand and treat Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.” Lee and Trojanowski are also professors of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Penn Medicine.
Western University’s Robarts Research Institute cites them as a collaborative team for the last two decades and among the 10 most cited neuroscientists in the world. Lee and Trojanowski have made major contributions to understanding the molecular basis of neurological disorders through their work uncovering major disease proteins in Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and frontotemporal degeneration.
“Their work has had an immense impact on our understanding of neurological disorders and on our ability to develop focused therapies,” said Arthur Brown, PhD, Robarts Research Institute scientist and chair of the Taylor Prize committee. “They have made an unparalleled contribution to the field of neuroscience.”
The J. Allyn Taylor International Prize in Medicine is named after the founding Chair of the Board at Robarts, and includes a cash prize of $25,000 and a medal bearing the likeness of J. Allyn Taylor. For more information, see the Taylor Prize release.
Penn Medicine is one of the world’s leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, excellence in patient care, and community service. The organization consists of the University of Pennsylvania Health System and Penn’s Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine, founded in 1765 as the nation’s first medical school.
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