Hamlin Lecture Series Award
Dr. Joyce Hamlin’s many years of service to the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Genetics and her dedication to graduate education are honored through this award to a graduate student.
History
Dr. Hamlin has made fundamental discoveries in several fields. By devising sophisticated biochemical methods for purifying replication intermediates, her laboratory identified and cloned the first mammalian origin of replication, which resides in the dihydrofolate reductase locus. They subsequently showed that this origin consists of a zone of redundant, inefficient initiation sites rather than the single sites characteristic of origins in microorganisms. By developing a powerful method for in loco mutagenesis, her lab demonstrated that initiation is controlled not by classic replicators, but rather by elements that regulate transcription and/or chromatin architecture. In a recent tour-de-force, her lab devised a strategy for preparing essentially pure and comprehensive libraries of origins from complex genomes. They have shown that the majority of origins correspond to zones, thus orchestrating an important paradigm shift in the replication field. Hamlin’s lab also was first to isolate and characterize an entire amplicon from drug-resistant cells and, using single-cell analysis, subsequently showed that amplification is initiated by chromosome breaks. This important and heterodoxic discovery unified all the gross chromosomal rearrangements in cancer under one mechanistic umbrella. Her group also identified a novel p53-independent damage-sensing checkpoint that operates at the G1/S boundary. Her work is characterized by: 1) an acute awareness of the important questions in her fields, 2) an ability to develop novel and simple methods to address these questions, 3) flawless technique, and 4) parsimonious and forthright interpretations of data.
Perhaps Dr. Hamlin’s proudest accomplishments arose from her service as Chair of the Biochemistry & Molecular Genetics Department (1998-2011). During this interval, she successfully recruited 17 outstanding faculty members, hundreds of graduate students under the auspices of the BMG and CMB Graduate Programs, and counseled scores of postdoctoral fellows – both in her own laboratory and in the Department as a whole. This dedication helped to shape the BMG “Family” into a vital, interactive, and extremely successful academic unit. Importantly, she maintained at least two (and sometimes three or four) NIH grants during her entire professional academic career, even after assuming her duties as Departmental Chair.
Selection Criteria
Annually, the BMG faculty will consider graduate student nominations for a Hamlin Award carrying a $500 monetary component.
The annual Hamlin Award review will roughly coincide with the evaluation for the annual BMG Outstanding Graduate Student Award. Only the latter awardee will be forwarded as a nominee for the annual BIMS Peach/Hungerford Awards.
Prior Recipients
Róża Przanowska – 2020
Prasad Trivedi – 2019
Ryan Fine – 2018
Brian Reon – 2017
Adam Mueller – 2014
The review committee may exercise any option for the Hamlin award
- No qualifying awardee.
- Both Hamlin and Outstanding Graduate Student Awards to the same individual.
- Separate award winners for the Hamlin and Outstanding Graduate Student Award.
Eligibility
- Any current BMG student or current UVA student in the lab of a faculty who has a primary appointment in BMG (even if the student is not in the BMG program).
- Any such student who has graduated since the last Hamlin Award was made.
- Students must have completed all requirements for advancement to Ph.D. candidacy.
Nomination Procedures
- Curriculum vitae for the student
- Letters of recommendation (3-5 letters, one of which must be from the student’s mentor)
- Reprints or preprints of papers/manuscripts, or other documents that provide evidence of scientific productivity and/or leadership. LIMIT = 3 documents
- Graduate and undergraduate transcripts
- GRE/MCAT scores
Award winners (and hence nominees) must be available for a departmental research seminar.
Previous Award Winners
The annual Joyce L. Hamlin Award is dedicated to recognition of exceptional graduate students whose development has been furthered through the Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics graduate program at the University of Virginia. The prize recipient(s) is recognized with a monetary award and the privilege of giving the “Joyce L. Hamlin Student Presentation”, which is the only student presentation amongst the nationally acclaimed speakers of the annual Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics symposium. With this award, we honor Dr. Hamlin for her unsurpassed dedication to the education of students and pursuit of excellence in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics.
A statement from Dr. Hamlin:
“I am so pleased to have a student award in my name, and also that the first awardee is someone whom I know very well – Adam Mueller. If Adam sets the standard that the award will require in future, then the “Hamlin Award” will, indeed, go on making me proud. Congratulations, Adam, and the very best of luck in your next professional step.
In my opinion, academic science is one of the last true intellectual frontiers: it is a lifetime of fun if you have the passion for it, because you can do and dream exactly what you want — as long as you can convince the supporting agencies that you have something worthwhile to contribute. That means a true passion for discovery, the ability to dream about it at night, the willingness to put it at the top of your priorities, but also, importantly, the ability to communicate how wonderful you and your science truly are in both the written and spoken word. So don’t forget that the King’s English and Newton’s laws are not mutually exclusive, and you need to extol your virtues effectively to both pros and lay people who might ultimately support you.
I believe that every one of the faculty members in the basic sciences at UVA, and particularly those in BMG, exemplifies these multiple attributes, which are the reasons they were recruited and hired in the first place. I have been so proud of our colleagues in every way during my 33 year tenure in the School of Medicine. They are all heroes in my book and our graduate students and fellows are lucky to be in the splendid intellectual environment that they have created.
All the best to each of you. Enjoy this magnificent vocation and give it your all. We are uniquely blessed in this country to work at whatever our hearts desire, and science is inherently one of the most passionate and personally-sustaining professions available to us.
Joyce H.”
Dr. Adam Mueller, Ph.D., is the 2014 recipient of the Joyce L. Hamlin award.
Adam came to the BMG graduate program with an M.S. in Applied Molecular Biology from UMBC. During his tenure at UVa, he received a GSAS Presidential Fellowship, was appointed to the NIH Cancer Training Grant, competed successfully for an extramural Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program Predoctoral traineeship and has been supported by the Medical Scientist Training Program NIH grant. He is the lead author on 2 of the 6 papers he has published with his mentor (Dr. Anindya Dutta) and has a 3rd first-author manuscript in preparation. He defended his Ph.D. in the summer of 2013 and has returned to Medical School to complete the remainder of his M.D. training.
The annual Joyce L. Hamlin Award is dedicated to recognition of exceptional graduate students whose development has been furthered through the Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics graduate program at the University of Virginia. The prize recipient is recognized with a monetary award. With this award, we honor Dr. Hamlin for her unsurpassed dedication to the education of students and pursuit of excellence in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. Congratulations to Brian Reon for his work: “Role of Long Noncoding RNA’s in Aggressive Brain Tumors”
Congratulations to Ryan Fine for his nomination and selection for the 2018 Hamlin Award. Ryan is a graduate student in the lab of Dr. Jeff Smith. Ryan is expected to graduate in 2019 and begin his first postdoctoral position.