Congratulations to Anindya Dutta, MBBS, PhD, Harry F. Byrd Professor and Chair of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics and Professor of Pathology, for being the recipient of the 2015 ASIP Outstanding Investigator Award. The American Society for Investigative Pathology (ASIP), a society of biomedical scientists who investigate mechanisms of disease, gives this prestigious award to recognize mid-career investigators with demonstrated excellence in research in experimental pathology.
Dr. Dutta is a leading investigator in two separate fields of molecular biology, has over 160 publications in high-quality scientific journals, has received over $117 million in grant funding, and is currently the primary investigator on multiple National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants. Dr. Dutta has identified several DNA replication-initiating factors and characterized their roles in DNA replication. His discoveries explain how cells prevent re-initiation of DNA replication during a single-cell cycle, how an experimental anti-cancer drug, MLN4924, induces such abnormal re-initiation to kill cells and how noncoding RNAs like microRNAs and long noncoding RNAs regulate cell proliferation.
Dr. Dutta has also served as a frequent reviewer of grants and papers and has been invited to organize prestigious international meetings like Gordon Research Conferences on “Cell Growth and Proliferation” or on “Genome Stability” and Cold Spring Harbor meetings on “Eukaryotic DNA replication and Genome Stability.” Dr. Peter Howley, former Chair of Pathology at Harvard Medical School, says Dr. Dutta has found “the best examples of the important role played by specific microRNAs to prevent cell proliferation in the context of differentiation and tumor suppression.”
Congratulations, Dr. Dutta, on this outstanding award.