Announcing the Women in Cell Biology Early Career Award Medal

To mark the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the BSCB we are pleased and excited to announce the establishment of a new prize, the BSCB Women in Cell Biology Early Career Award Medal. This will be an annual honour awarded to an outstanding female cell biologist who has started her own research group in the UK within the last 7 years (with allowance for career breaks due to children or for other legitimate reasons)

“While the concept of women-only prizes is controversial, most scientists think that we lose far too many talented, young, female scientists. We hope that this award will help raise the profile of some of our most promising young stars at a crucial stage in their career and that the awardees will serve as inspiring role models for the next generation of female cell biologists.” – Professor Jordan Raff, President of the BSCB

This new prize will complement the already established Hooke Medal, awarded annually by the BSCB to a UK-based cell biologist of either gender who has made exceptional contributions to the field. From 2015, the Hooke Medal will be awarded to someone who started his or her own group within the last 14 years (with allowance for career breaks due to children or for other legitimate reasons).

The winner of the 2014 Hooke Medal was Dr Anne Bertolotti from the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge.  A full list of previous Hooke Medal winners can be found here.

The BSCB committee is currently inviting nominations for both the Hooke Medal and the WICB Early Career Award Medal from its membership.  Candidates must provide a full CV and have to be nominated by two BSCB members who should both provide a short summary of the candidate’s major contributions to cell biology. Submission should be sent to the BSCB Secretary, Grant Wheeler (Grant.Wheeler@uea.ac.uk). The deadline for nominations is the 1st August. Winners will be selected by the BSCB Committee and will be presented with their medal at the BSCB/BSDB Annual Spring Meeting in Warwick (April 12-15th, 2015), where they will deliver their Medal Lecture.