2021 Elisa Izaurralde Award Winner
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The RNA Society is very pleased to announce Gene Yeo has been selected to receive the 2021 Elisa Izaurralde Award for Innovation in Research, Teaching, and Service. Please join us in congratulating Gene for his research accomplishments and outstanding dedication to mentorship, inclusion, and community health. Please remember to set aside time to hear Gene speak about his ground-breaking work at the 2021 RNA Society Annual Meeting next June!

2021 Elisa Izaurralde Award for Innovation in Research Teaching and Service Award  

Gene Yeo, from the University of California San Diego, is this year’s recipient of the Elisa Izaurralde Award.  Gene is recognized for his contributions as an outstanding innovator, mentor and community-oriented science leader. After a PhD at MIT with Chris Burge and Tomaso Poggio, and holding the first Crick-Jacobs Fellow position at the Salk Institute, Gene moved to UCSD where he is Professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and founding member of the Institute for Genomic Medicine. His laboratory has made pioneering contributions to our understanding of the architecture of cellular programs of post-transcriptional gene regulation in multiple systems, including stem cells and neural differentiation and degeneration. Gene's legendary energy and contagious enthusiasm have spearheaded the development of computational and experimental methods (including eCLIP) and databases that are widely used by the RNA community, leading also to proof-of-concept therapeutic applications (e.g. in repeat expansion and neurodegenerative disorders, using RNA targeting by CRISPR/Cas9). He is a founder of four Biotech companies and two alliances for Covid-19 research coordination and community outreach in San Diego. He is also a committed member of the RNA Society, having been one of the organizers of the Annual Meeting in Krakow and serving as the lead organizer of the 2021 Annual Meeting. His nomination was endorsed by Kristen Lynch.