Two Canadians are among six research scientists who have been named recipients of this year's prestigious Gairdner Awards.
Cognitive neuroscientists Dr. Brenda Milner of McGill University in Montreal and Dr. Endel Tulving of the University of Toronto were both honoured with a Gairdner
The awards have sometimes been described as a pre-cursor to the Nobel Prize. Of the 274 Gairdner winners, 64 have gone on to win the Nobel.
"The 2005 awards honour outstanding achievements in three very different but important areas of inquiry and discovery: obesity, human memory and gene splicing," Dr. John Dirks, president of the Gairdner Foundation, said in a release.
"Each of the awardees has done groundbreaking work that is transforming our understanding of how the body functions and how its malfunctions can be overcome."
Established by Toronto businessman James Gairdner, the awards have been presented to honour achievement in medical science since 1959.
Each Gairdner carries a cash value of $30,000. They will be presented at a gala dinner in Toronto in late October.
This year's honourees are:
Dr. Jeffrey Friedman - Professor, Rockefeller University, New York City; investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; director, The Starr Center for Human Genetics. Honoured for contributions to the understanding of obesity and particularly for the discovery of the adipose (fat) tissue hormone, leptin.
Dr. Douglas Coleman - Senior scientist, emeritus, The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine. Also honoured for contributions to the understanding of obesity and for the discovery of leptin.
Dr. Craig Mello - Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; chair in molecular medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School. Honoured for the discovery of RNA interference which initiated a revolution in the study
and use of RNA in gene slicing.
Dr. Andrew Fire - Professor of pathology and genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine. For the discovery of RNA interference and the use of RNA in gene slicing.
Dr. Endel Tulving - Chair in cognitive neuroscience, Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Centre, University of Toronto, also for pioneering research in the understanding of human memory.