Cell biologist Anthony Hyman has won this year's European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) Gold Medal. The prize, which is awarded to biologists under the age of 40, acknowledges Hyman's contributions to understanding of the mechanisms involved in cell division.
"Tony's work has always benefited from his ability to identify, adapt, and adopt new technologies," said Michael Glotzer at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna. "He has been instrumental in developing new ways to study microtubules and microtubule-dependent processes," Glotzer added. For example, Hyman developed a labeling method to determine the orientation of microtubules in the cell. He was also involved in one of the first attempts to visualize the regulation of microtubule dynamics. In addition, he developed an in vitro assay to study the assembly of the mitotic spindle. More recently, he became one of the first investigators to use RNA interference to search for genes involved in ...
