2001 GSA Honors and Awards

The 2001 George W. Beadle Medal

IT is a pleasure to honor Gerald R. Fink as the recipient of the George W. Beadle Medal for 2001. This medal recognizes the impact of Gerry's research advances, his mentoring of students in his own lab as well as in the yeast field, his contributions to the yeast community, and his commitment to science education and science policy.

Gerry's early work on the HIS4 gene in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae weaned us from thinking about operons in eukaryotes, established some of the genetic properties of loci that encode multifunctional proteins, and provided a rich and varied collection of mutants and mutations that he made freely available. His was the first yeast lab to combine genetics with biochemistry in a meaningful way. The his4 mutants provided, for Gerry and his scientific descendants, entries into recombination, the general control system (GCN and GCD), the transcriptional apparatus (SPT), initiation of translation, Ty transposition as retrotransposition, and, of course, transformation. He and his colleagues provided definitive proof of yeast transformation, allowing the molecular genetics of yeast in all its glory to be developed. In recent years, he and his colleagues have not only deciphered the workings of the filamentation pathway and its overlap with the pheromone response pathway in budding yeast but also identified homologous genes for the pathway in the fungal pathogen, Candida albicans. This work has important medical implications for fungal pathogenicity. In addition to this large body of work on Saccharomyces, in recent years Gerry and his students have contributed to making Arabadopsis thaliana and Candida albicans workable genetic systems.

Gerry and Fred Sherman organized and taught the yeast genetics course at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory for 18 years and introduced many current researchers to the organism. The several editions of the laboratory manual for that course and a subsequent Methods in Enzymology volume (both with collaborators) have been widely used. Gerry has been a driving intellectual force for the field and has played a major role in convincing those who work on higher/bigger eukaryotes how much yeast has to offer as a model system for important biological problems. Today this seems obvious, but there was a time when Gerry was assuring audiences that yeast cells really do have nuclei. Gerry has been in no small part responsible for the vitality of yeast genetics in the current scientific enterprise.

Gerry's energy and vision extend also to science education for the public. During his 11 years as Director of the Whitehead Institute, he instituted an educational outreach program for local high school teachers that has made a major impact. He also established an educational program for local high school students to introduce them to research in biology. In addition to these educational programs, he implemented several public policy initiatives, including efforts to inform legislators about social issues resulting from recent scientific advances. Part of this effort includes a biannual symposium on social implications of genetic research, with presentations by scientists, legislators, ethicists, physicians, members of the medical community, members of the judiciary community, and lawyers.

Gerry also has given extensive service to the larger genetics community through service on study sections and scientific advisory boards. He played a critical role in bringing the Genetics Society of America through a perilous financial period. Less easy to document has been his outspoken advocacy for and defense of genetics in various arenas, both scientific and political.

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