Two Yale medical researchers win Pew Awards in Biomedical Science

Pew Awards winners Bo Chen, left, and Andrew Goodman

Two Yale School of Medicine faculty members have been named recipients of the highly competitive 2013 Pew Scholar in Biomedical Science Awards.

Bo Chen and Andrew Goodman were among 22 award winners selected from 134 nominees from major research institutions. This year both Yale nominees were selected for the award.

Chen, assistant professor of ophthalmology & visual science and neurobiology, will use his award to continue research on retinal degenerative diseases. He is developing gene delivery techniques to generate new retinal cells. Chen has also received a 2011 Karl Kirchgessner Foundation for Retinal Research Award, and a 2002 five-year National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 award for early-stage investigators.

Goodman, assistant professor of microbial pathogenesis and a member of the Microbial Diversity Institute at Yale’s West Campus, will use his award to continue studying how the body’s resident bacteria impact human health and the metabolism of drugs. He will utilize a specialized germ-free mouse laboratory to study the variations in microbial communities. Goodman is a 2012 Yale Center for Clinical Investigation Scholar, and received both a 2012 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award and a 2011 Robert T. McCluskey, M.D. Yale Scholar Award.

A video in which Anita Pepper, director of Pew’s biomedical programs, explains the awards is available here. Visitors to the trust's website may take a quiz featuring Pew Scholars.

The Pew Charitable Trust provides awards to young investigators of outstanding promise in science relevant to the advancement of human health. The formal announcement of the 2013 class is on June 13. Each recipient receives $60,000 per year for the next four years to support continuing research.