Joan Steitz has been a leader in the field of RNA biology for a generation, from her graduate work on the structure and function of RNA in RNA-containing bacterial viruses (bacteriophages), to the discovery of the role of small nuclear and nucleolar ribonucleoprotein particles (snRNPs and snoRNPs) in RNA processing, and the discovery of a rare mRNA processing pathway.

Prof Alan Hall has been a pioneer in showing how external signals control the cellular cytoskeleton, composed of proteins such as actin, which in turn organizes the shape and movement of cells. His research revealed a series of crucial molecular switches (called Rho GTPases), which acting together determine when and where the cell's outer membrane and actin cytoskeleton become rearranged to drive changes in cell migration. These are crucial features of cellular function in normal tissues, and critical for the aberrant behaviour of cancer cells. Dr. Hall's work has therefore transformed our understanding of the biology of human cells.

Lucy Shapiro is a Professor in the Department of Developmental Biology at Stanford University School of Medicine where she holds the Virginia and D. K. Ludwig Chair in Cancer Research and is the Director of the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine. She received her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Albert Einstein College of Medicine.  She joined the faculty of  Stanford University School of Medicine in 1989 and served as the founding Chair of the Department of Developmental Biology from 1989-1997.  Prior to coming to Stanford, Professor Shapiro was the Higgins Professor and Chair of Microbiology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, and prior to that she held the Lola and Saul Kramer Endowed Chair at Albert Einstein College of Medicine where she was Chair of the Department of Molecular Biology.

A native of Rhode Island, Dr. William A. Catterall received his B.A. degree in Chemistry from Brown University in 1968, his Ph.D. in Physiological Chemistry from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1972, and his postdoctoral training in neurobiology and molecular pharmacology as a Muscular Dystrophy Association Research Fellow with Dr. Marshall Nirenberg at the National Institutes of Health from 1972 to 1974. Following three more years as a staff scientist at the National Institutes of Health, he joined the faculty of the University of Washington School of Medicine in 1977 as an associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology, became professor in 1981, and Chair of the Department of Pharmacology in 1984.

Peter J. Ratcliffe was educated at Lancaster Royal Grammar winning an open scholarship to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge in 1972. He studied Medicine at Cambridge and St Bartholomew's Hospital, London graduating with Distinction in 1978. He trained in renal medicine at Oxford initially working on the physiology of renal oxygenation and its implications for renal injury in shock.

Dr. Michael Hayden is a Killam Professor of Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia and Canada Research Chair in Human Genetics and Molecular Medicine.  He is also the Director of the Center for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics (CMMT) in Vancouver, Canada; a genetic research center within UBC and located at the Child and Family Research Institute.
Michael was the top graduate in medicine (1975) from the University of Cape Town, where he also received his PhD in Genetics (1979). He completed a post-doctoral fellowship and further training in Internal Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Michael is board-certified in both Internal Medicine and Clinical Genetics.

Shizuo Akira received his M.D. from Osaka University in 1977, and after three years' clinical training as physician, he entered the Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University in 1980, and obtained his Ph.D. in 1984. He spent two years from 1985 to 1987 as a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of California at Berkeley. He was a research associate from 1987 through 1995 at the Institute for Molecular and Cellular Biology, Osaka University in the laboratory of Dr. Tadamitsu Kishimoto, where he cloned two transcription factors, NF-IL6(C/EBPbeta) and STAT3.

The Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences is intended to recognize breakthrough research in pure or applied life science research that is distinguished by its excellence, originality and impact on our understanding of biological systems and processes. The award may recognize a specific contribution or series of contributions that demonstrate the nominee’s significant leadership in the development of research concepts or their clinical application. Particular emphasis will be placed on research that champions novel approaches and challenges accepted thinking in the biomedical sciences.