16 May 2008

May 16, 2008 - Dr Stephen Cohen, Executive Director and Temasek Senior Investigator of Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, has been elected to a Fellowship of the UK's most prestigious scientific organization, the Royal Society.

The Royal Society announced today (16 May 2008) the election of 44 new Fellows, in recognition of their exceptional contributions to science, engineering and medicine. It is the highest accolade a scientist can have, short of a Nobel prize.

The Royal Society, the United Kingdom’s national academy of science, is one of the world’s most prestigious scientific societies. Its origins date to 1660, and it counts among its elected fellows Issac Newton, Charles Darwin, Francis Crick and Stephen Hawking. Fellows are elected through a peer review process that culminates in a vote by existing Fellows. The main criterion for election as a Fellow is scientific excellence. There are currently more than 60 Nobel Laureates amongst the Society's approximately 1400 Fellows and Foreign Members.

Stephen Cohen was elected as a Fellow for his work on the mechanisms that organise spatial pattern and control growth during animal development. Although focussed mainly on insect appendage development, his work has provided important insights into processes fundamental to animal development. Among these was the finding that compartment boundaries serve as patterning centres by producing gradients of secreted signalling proteins. These morphogenetic gradients instruct cells about their fate as a function of their position. He has also studied how morphogen gradients contribute to size control. Key recent discoveries identified microRNAs as regulators of growth and metabolism and provided important insights into their mode of action.

Dr Cohen, a Canadian national, received his PhD in biology from Princeton University, USA, in 1983 and did post-doctoral work at MIT and at the Max-Planck Institute. Prior to joining TLL as Executive Director and Temasek Senior Investigator, he was the Head of the Developmental Biology Unit at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL).

Congratulations Steve on your election to the Royal Society!