Professor Gregory Hannon of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has won a MERIT Award from the NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences.
The award, which stands for Method to Extend Research in Time, recognizes highly productive scientists by extending funding for an existing research project grant.
Hannon has sought to understand the biological roles of small RNAs and the underlying mechanisms by which they operate. He and colleagues have identified and characterized many of the protein complexes, including Dicer and RISC, that generate and process small interfering RNAs and microRNAs.
Hannon studies a natural cellular mechanism implicated in gene regulation and in genome defense used by scientists to hunt for cancer genes, to stop viral infections, and most recently, on an exploratory basis, to treat human diseases.
Hannon’s lab works to understand the biology of cancer cells, with a focus on breast and pancreatic cancer, and on the biological mechanisms of resistance to targeted cancer treatments.
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