Prior to Jeffrey M. Friedman's groundbreaking research, little was known about the components of the biologic system that controls weight, and many scientists questioned the very existence of such a system. Dr. Friedman's 1994 identification of the weight- and appetite-regulating hormone leptin, however, provided a genetic explanation of obesity and has challenged the popular belief that lack of willpower causes people to be obese. For his discovery of leptin, which ultimately opened obesity research to molecular exploration, Dr. Friedman was awarded the 2010 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award.

Dr Napoleone Ferrara won 2010 Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award  for the discovery of VEGF as a major mediator of angiogenesis and the development of an effective anti-VEGF therapy for wet macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness in the elderly.

Dr Napoleone Ferrara obtained his M.D. degree from the University of Catania Medical School in Italy in 1981. He joined Genentech Inc. in 1988 after doing his postdoctoral research at the University of California at San Francisco. At present, he is the Genentech Fellow in the Genentech Research Organization.

Axel Ullrich (born October 19, 1943, Lauban, Silesia, Germany) in is a German cancer researcher and has been the Director of Molecular biology at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany since 1988. His research has primarily focused on signal transduction. Ullrich received the Wolf Prize in 2010.

Life and work
After taking a degree in biochemistry at the University of Tübingen, Germany, he received a Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg in Molecular Genetics in 1975. He then did his postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco from 1975 to 1977 and then worked as a senior scientist at Genentech in San Francisco, California from 1978 to 1988. From 1988, he has been at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry.

Dr Gupta’s name was announced by the World Food Prize Foundation yesterday at a ceremony at the US State Department at Washington DC, according to a press note from the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) here.

Mr. Edson Lobato is a Brazilian soil fertility scientist who received the 2006 World Food Prize for his role in helping transform the Cerrado into productive cropland. Adding to the contributions of fellow 2006 World Food Prize Laureates, Dr. A. Colin McClung of the United States, and Alysson Paolinelli of Brazil, Lobato helped make agricultural development possible in the Cerrado, a region named from Portuguese words meaning “closed, inaccessible land.”

Gebisa Ejeta (born 1950) is an Ethiopian American plant breeder and geneticist who has won the 2009 World Food Prize for his major contributions in the production of sorghum.

BIOGRAPHY
 
Gebisa Ejeta was born and raised in a small rural community in west-central Ethiopia.  He completed his early education in his native country including a BS in Plant Sciences from Alemaya College in 1973.  He attended graduate school at Purdue University earning his Masters (1976) and PhD (1978) in Plant Breeding & Genetics.  In March 1979, Gebisa joined the International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and conducted seminal sorghum research in Sudan for five years.  In January 1984, Dr. Ejeta returned to Purdue University as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Agronomy.  Since then, he has led a comprehensive educational and research program at Purdue with emphasis on African agricultural research and development.  He currently holds the position of Distinguished Professor of Plant Breeding & Genetics and International Agriculture at Purdue University.

Stephen Elledge, PhD, is one of the world’s leading and most prolific scientists in the field of cell cycle checkpoint regulation and the cellular response to genotoxic stress. As a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford working on eukaryotic homologous recombination, he serendipitously found a family of genes known as ribonucleotide reductases and subsequently showed that these genes are activated by DNA damage and regulated by the cell cycle. Elledge’s work in this area led to his first academic appointment as assistant professor of biochemistry at Baylor College of Medicine.

Prof. Ilan Chet was born in Haifa in 1939. He completed his doctorate in microbiology at the Faculty of Agriculture of the Hebrew University. His research has focused on the fundamental, applied and biotechnological aspects of the biological control of plant diseases using environmentally friendly microorganisms. He has published over 340 articles in international science journals, has edited three books in his fields of research and has registered 30 patents. He has instructed some 80 M.Sc. and doctoral students.

Axel Ullrich (born October 19, 1943, Lauban, Silesia, Germany) in is a German cancer researcher and has been the Director of Molecular biology at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany since 1988. His research has primarily focused on signal transduction. Ullrich received the Wolf Prize in 2010.

Life and work

After taking a degree in biochemistry at the University of Tübingen, Germany, he received a Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg in Molecular Genetics in 1975. He then did his postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco from 1975 to 1977 and then worked as a senior scientist at Genentech in San Francisco, California from 1978 to 1988. From 1988, he has been at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry.

Franz-Ulrich Hartl (born March 10, 1957) is a German biochemist and Managing Director of the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry. He is known for his pioneering work in the field of protein-mediated protein folding.

F. Ulrich Hartl studied Medicine at Heidelberg University. After receiving his M.D. in 1982 and his doctoral degree in Biochemistry in 1985 he moved to the laboratory of Walter Neupert in Munich where he worked on the mechanism of protein transport into mitochondria, first as a post-doctoral fellow and from 1987 to 1991 as a research group leader.