Columbia to award 2008 Horwitz Prize to Arthur Horwich & Ulrich Hartl for cellular protein folding

Dr. Rosalind Franklin awarded an Honorary Horwitz Prize, posthumously, for her role in the discovery of DNA’s structure

NEW YORK – Columbia University will award the 2008 Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize to F. Ulrich Hartl, M.D., professor and director of the Department of Cellular Biochemistry at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Germany, and Arthur Horwich, M.D., Eugene Higgins Professor of Genetics, professor of pediatrics and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator at Yale University School of Medicine, for their collaborative work in expanding fundamental understanding of cellular protein folding, and its role in Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, cystic fibrosis and other life-threatening diseases. Additionally, an Honorary 2008 Horwitz Prize will be given to Rosalind Franklin, Ph.D., posthumously, for her seminal contributions to the discovery of the structure of DNA. These awards will be given at ceremonies to be held this November.

"It is our privilege to award the 2008 Horwitz Prize to Drs. Horwich and Hartl, with an honorary award to Dr. Franklin, as recognition for their pioneering work in the fields of protein structure and DNA," said Lee Goldman, M.D., executive vice president of Columbia University and dean of the faculties of health sciences and medicine at Columbia University Medical Center. "The selection of these esteemed scientists recognizes their respective, significant contributions to the understanding of the importance of shape in human biology."

"The knowledge these biologists have given us about the structures of protein folding and DNA has laid the foundation for extraordinarily important fields of study that have and continue to lead to new scientific and disease breakthroughs," said David Hirsh, Ph.D., executive vice president for research at Columbia University.

Drs. Hartl's and Horwich's work has significantly expanded the understanding of how proteins fold into their final shapes within human cells. It is this folding of proteins that is responsible for much of the action in our cells and ultimately our bodies – actions such as moving, thinking and other biological processes.

Prior to their work, it was thought that proteins, which at "birth" resemble a line of beads on a string, spontaneously fold themselves into their final, three-dimensional structures. Drs. Hartl and Horwich discovered that inside cells, proteins need assistance from other proteins, known as chaperones, to guide the process and ensure they fold into the proper shape. In independent and often complementary work, they also established the pathway and molecular mechanisms involved in this process.