Scientific Founder Wins Prestigious Rosenstiel Award

CAMBRIDGE, UK. Professor Azim Surani, CellCentric’s scientific founder, has been awarded the 36th Annual Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for 2007 for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Science. The award recognises “his pioneering work on epigenetic gene regulation in mammalian embryos.”

The Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award was established in 1971 to reward scientists for discoveries of particular originality and importance to basic medical research as it applies to medicine. Previous winners include twenty-four recipients of Nobel Prizes including Paul Nurse, Leland Hartwell, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, Edward Lewis, Robert Horvitz, John Sulston, Sydney Brenner and César Milstein.

Professor Surani was presented his award at Brandeis University on the basis of recommendations of a panel of outstanding scientists. He received the prize alongside Dr Mary Lyon of the MRC Mammalian Genetics Unit, Harwell, UK and Professor Davor Solter of the Max Planck Institute of Immunology, Freiburg, Germany.

Professor Surani is the Mary Marshall and Arthur Walton Professor of Physiology and Reproduction at the Wellcome Trust Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute, and the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, University of Cambridge, UK. In 2004, he co-founded CellCentric Ltd. with leading UK early stage venture capital company Avlar BioVentures Ltd.

CellCentric is focused on unlocking epigenetic control mechanisms through its exclusive network of intellectual property arrangements with world-leading scientists. From its unique knowledge position, CellCentric is prioritising the best opportunities for translation into novel targets, screens and epigenetic modulatory factors in this highly important field.