Kamen Prize won by Dr. Sharon Torigoe and Andro Rios

Dr. Sharon Torigoe (from the lab of Dr. James Kadonaga, Section of Molecular Biology) and Dr. Andro Rios (from the lab of Dr. Yitzhak Tor, Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry) have both been chosen to receive the Kamen Prize for 2012-13. The Prize was established in 1978 by friends and family of Professor Martin D. Kamen to recognize the outstanding thesis in biochemistry defended each year at UCSD. Dr. Torigoe won for her dissertation "Identification of the Prenucleosome and Analysis of the Mechanism of ATP-dependent Chromatin assembly." Dr. Rios won for his dissertation "On the origin of the canonical nucleobases: selection pressures and hydrolytic stabilities of N-glycosyl bonds." Professor Kamen was a co-discoverer of carbon 14 while at UC Berkeley in the early 1940s. He came to UCSD in 1960 and continued important work on photosynthetic transport proteins until his retirement. He passed away in 2002. A cash prize of $1,500 will be awarded to each recipient in June, and they are invited to present the Martin D. Kamen Lecture the following academic year.