Leboy selected as AWIS fellow 

The Association for Women in Science announced the selection of Phoebe Leboy as a 2010 AWIS Fellow at its 40th Anniversary and Fellows Reception held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science this past spring.

In her presentation, AWIS President Joan Herbers noted: “We are honoring Phoebe Leboy for her excellent and long-term efforts in furthering the mission of AWIS through her work as a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania and her selfless service as a member of the board and president of AWIS. For 40 years, she has highlighted inequities faced by women in the STEM disciplines and worked diligently and successfully to reduce them.”

Leboy is a professor of biochemistry emerita at the University of Pennsylvania. Her laboratory studies changes in gene expression associated with the formation and maintenance of skeletal tissue.

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Shiloh receives Clowes Memorial Award and Israel Prize 

Photo credit: American Friends of Tel Aviv University.

Yosef Shiloh, a David and Inez Myers professor in cancer research at Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine, was selected to receive the 2011 Israel Prize, Israel’s most distinguished national honor. The prize is awarded by the Israeli Ministry of Education to Israeli citizens who have demonstrated excellence in their chosen profession.

Earlier this year Shiloh was the first Israeli to receive the 51st annual G.H.A. Clowes Award from the American Association for Cancer Research. He was honored for his studies on the cellular DNA damage response and the rare genomic instability syndrome ataxia-telangiectasia.

Shiloh has been investigating ataxia-telangiectasia and the defect in the DNA damage response that leads to this disease for more than 30 years. He revolutionized the field when his lab identified the ataxia-telangiectasia gene in 1995 and successfully cloned it, calling it ataxia-telangiectasia mutated. The identification of the ATM gene opened many new avenues of inquiry and allowed research to race forward. Since then, the Shiloh laboratory has expanded its studies to the mode of action of the ATM gene product – the ATM protein kinase – and the extensive signaling network that it activates in response to DNA damage.

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