TIGR President Wins ASM's Promega Biotechnology Research Award
TIGR President Claire M. Fraser has been awarded the 2005 Promega Biotechnology Research Award at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology for her "outstanding contributions to the application of biotechnology through fundamental microbiological research and development."
June 6, 2005
TIGR President and Director Claire M. Fraser, Ph.D., has been awarded the 2005 Promega Biotechnology Research Award at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), the nation's largest life sciences society.
The award honors Fraser for her "outstanding contributions to the application of biotechnology through fundamental microbiological research and development." In accepting the award Monday, Fraser delivered a lecture at the ASM's 105th General Meeting in Atlanta.
Past recipients of the award, which is supported by Promega Corp., include Stanford University biochemist Patrick O. Brown (2003), Harvard University biochemist Stuart L. Schreiber (2001), University of Washington microbiologist Stanley Fields (2000), TIGR Chairman J. Craig Venter (1999) and Princeton University geneticist David Botstein (1998).
Fraser, who co-founded TIGR in 1992 and has been the Institute's president since 1998, is a past recipient of several science awards, including the E. O. Lawrence Award from the U.S. Department of Energy. Last fall, Fraser was named as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for "her pioneering efforts in the field of genomics, particularly in the sequencing and analysis of microbial genomes." AAAS Fellows are chosen by scientific peers in recognition of their distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.
Fraser led the TIGR teams that sequenced the genomes of Mycoplasma genitalium, the spirochetes Treponema pallidum and Borrelia burgdorfei, Bacillus anthracis, and two species of Chlamydia. During her career, Fraser has published more than 200 articles in scientific journals and books. Before becoming TIGR's president, Fraser was the institute's vice president of research and director of its microbial genomics department.
Prior to that, Fraser worked as a researcher at the National Institutes of Health, including three years as Chief of the Section of Molecular Neurobiology at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. She has been a member of several National Research Council committees and has served on review panels of the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health. In addition to her TIGR posts, Fraser is also a Professor in the Departments of Pharmacology, Microbiology and Tropical Medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine.