Losick among Canada Gairdner International Award recipients

Richard Losick, the Maria Moors Cabot Professor of Biology, was recently named one of seven Canada Gairdner International Award winners by the Gairdner Foundation, and will receive a CA$100,000 as one of the world’s leading medical research scientists. The Gairdner award is among the most prestigious awards in biomedical science.

Losick shares his award with Lucy Shapiro, director of the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine at Stanford University, “for their discovery of mechanisms that define cell polarity and asymmetric cell division, processes key in cell differentiation and in the generation of cell diversity.” Their work has major implications for understanding how bacteria grow and divide.

Losick will receive his award at the Gairdners’ 50th anniversary banquet in Toronto on Oct. 29. He will also take part in the Gairdner National Program in October, lecturing at universities across Canada as well as at the Gairdner Minds That Matter conference at the University of Toronto on Oct. 29.