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Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Medicine 2002 (USD 150,000) for Dennis J. Selkoe

April 15, 2002

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
has awarded the
Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Medicine 2002 (USD 150,000) to
Professor Dennis J. Selkoe, M.D.
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
‘for his invaluable contribution to the development of the molecular study of diseases
of the brain, in particular Alzheimer’s disease’.

The subject
When the brains of Alzheimer’s patients are examined, they are found to contain ‘plaques’, made up largely of ‘amyloid beta’ proteins. For Dennis Selkoe, this formed the starting point for his research at the end of the 1970s. By applying methods drawn from biochemistry and molecular biology he has slowly but surely, and with a great deal of patience, managed to unravel the molecular components of the puzzle which is the complex disorder known as Alzheimer’s disease. What happens in the brain cells? Which substances play a role? What comes first, what is a consequence of what? Progress in finding answers to these questions has now reached the stage where the first patients are currently taking part in a trial with drugs intended to delay or prevent the disease. The social importance of this development is difficult to overestimate.
In addition, however, Selkoe’s work has led to unexpected insights into the functioning of membrane proteins which have much wider implications for biology. Results are now being achieved thanks to scientists’ better understanding of the ageing processes in the brain and of the onset and progression of Parkinson’s disease.

The Prize-winner
Dennis Selkoe was born in New York in 1943. He obtained his Master’s Degree at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in 1969, and from 1975 he was attached to Harvard Medical School in Boston, where he became Professor of Neurology in 1990. In 2000 Selkoe was made ‘Vincent and Stella Coates Professor of Neurological Diseases’, also at Harvard Medical School. He currently works as a neurologist in the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Selkoe enjoys an international reputation among his professional colleagues as the best researcher in the field of molecular pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease. He is a member of several editorial committees of scientific journals dealing with neurological topics, such as the Annual Review of Neuroscience and the American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. His scientific articles in Nature, Annual Review of Cell Biology, Annual Review of Neuroscience, Cell and Neuron are highly influential. It was therefore no surprise when Selkoe appeared at number 14 in the list of the ‘Best Brains of the Brain Decade’, which was drawn up by Science Watch on the basis of the 200 most-cited articles on neuroscience in the ten years between 1989 and 1998.
Selkoe has to date received a great many distinctions, including an honorary doctorate from the University of Harvard, the ‘Mathilde Solowey Award in the Neurosciences’ from the Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences (NIH), the Boerhaave medal from the University of Leiden, and the ‘Pioneer Award’ from the Alzheimer’s Association in the United States.
More information on Dennis Selkoe can be found on the following website: http://www.hms.harvard.edu/dms/neuroscience/fac_selkoe.html


The Prize
The Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Medicine has been awarded since 1989. Previous Prize-winners have included Luc Montagnier, David de Wied, Barry Marshall and Eric Kandel. The latter was one of the winners of the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2000. Further background information about the Prize can be found on the website of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences: http://www.knaw.nl/heinekenprizes.

The awards ceremony
The Heineken Prizes are presented every two years during a special session of the Academy. This year’s awards ceremony will take place on Tuesday, 24 September 2002 in the Beurs van Berlage building in Amsterdam.

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW)