The Albany Medical Center Prize serves to encourage and recognize extraordinary and sustained contributions to improving health care and promoting innovative biomedical research.

Awarded annually, the $500,000 prize is the largest prize in medicine in the United States and is bestowed to any physician or scientist, or group, whose work has led to significant advances in the fields of health care and scientific research with demonstrated translational benefits applied to improved patient care.

The prize is a legacy to its founder - the late Morris "Marty" Silverman.  At the inaugural awards ceremony in Albany, NY in March 2001, Albany Medical Center Prize founder Marty Silverman started a tradition that will be carried on for the duration of the Prize - 100 years. Marty's promise was to light one candle each year to honor that year's recipient.

Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD
Joan Steitz, PhD

Dr. Blackburn, the Morris Herzstein Professor of Biology and Physiology at the University of California San Francisco, is world-renowned for her groundbreaking discovery of the enzyme telomerase. Her studies demonstrated this enzyme fortifies telomeres–the simple DNA sequences that repeat over and over and constitute “the bookends at the end of chromosomes that hold everything in place.” Her subsequent studies have shown that the enzyme plays a significant role in cellular aging and may help to unravel the mysteries of a variety of diseases from cancer to chronic stress disorders.

Dr. Steitz, the Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University, is similarly revered in scientific circles for her pioneering work in RNA. She is best known for discovering and defining the function of small nuclear ribonucleoproteins (snRNPs) in pre-messenger RNA. She was the first to learn that these cellular complexes (snRNPs) play a key role in recognizing and eliminating introns. Many scientists believe that Dr. Steitz’ research may ultimately lead to breakthroughs in treating autoimmune diseases including lupus.

Both scientists have been honored with numerous previous awards and honors. Dr. Blackburn’s recognitions include, the prestigious Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research and the National Academy of Science Award in Molecular Biology. Dr. Steitz was honored with, among others, the National Medal of Science and the Rosalind E. Franklin Award for Women in Science of the National Cancer Institute.

Dr. Blackburn earned her BSc and MSc degrees from the University of Melbourne in Australia, and her PhD from the University of Cambridge in England. She did her postdoctoral work in molecular and cellular biology at Yale. She was on the faculty at the University of California at Berkeley in the department of molecular biology. Dr. Blackburn is currently a professor in the department of biochemistry and biophysics at UC San Francisco. She is also a Non-Resident Fellow of the Salk Institute. In 2007, Dr. Blackburn was listed among Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Dr. Steiz started her career as a graduate student at Harvard. After completing post-doctoral work at the Medical Research Council Lab of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, she joined the department of molecular physics and biochemistry at Yale. She also was the Josiah Macy Scholar at the Max Planck Institut fur Biophysikalische Chemie in Gottingen, Germany and at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. In addition, she was the Fairchild Distinguished Fellow at the California Institute of Technology, and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She served as chair of the department of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale and currently serves as the Sterling Professor there.

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