The Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research is given annually by
Johnson & Johnson to honor the work of an active scientist in academia, industry or a scientific institute in the field of biomedical research. It was established in 2004 and perpetuates the memory of
Paul Janssen, the founder of
Janssen Pharmaceutica, a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary.[1]
The Award
The Dr. Paul Janssen Award includes a $200,000 prize and acknowledges the work of an individual who has made a significant, transformational contribution toward the improvement of human health.[2]
Johnson & Johnson created the award in 2004 with the following goals:
To honor the memory of Janssen, his dedication to excellence and his leadership of young scientists
To promote, recognize and reward passion and creativity in biomedical research
To underscore
Johnson & Johnson's commitment to scientific excellence in the advancement of healthcare knowledge, while fulfilling its responsibility in the community
Paul Adriaan Jan Janssen (1926–2003)
Known to his colleagues as “Dr. Paul,” Janssen was the founder of Janssen Pharmaceutica, N.V., a pharmaceutical research laboratory based in
Beerse,
Belgium, and a physician-scientist who helped save millions of lives through his contribution to the discovery and development of more than 80 medicines. His work was responsible for many breakthroughs in several fields of disease, including
pain management,
psychiatry,
infectious disease and
gastroenterology. In addition, he has more than 100 patents to his name.
2008: Professor
Marc Feldmann and Emeritus Professor Sir
Ravinder N. Maini of The Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology,
Imperial College London, for their role in the discovery of tumor necrosis factor-alpha, or
TNF-alpha, as an effective therapeutic target for rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases.[4]
2009:Axel Ullrich, director of the Department of Molecular Biology,
Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Germany, for his pioneering work in applying
molecular biology and
molecular cloning to the discovery of protein therapeutics for the treatment of a wide range of diseases, including diabetes and cancer. [5]
2011:Napoleone Ferrara,
Genentech Fellow, for his research on
angiogenesis, the process of new
blood vessel formation that plays a key role in
cancer proliferation and a number of other diseases. Dr. Ferrara’s discoveries opened the door to the development of a new class of therapeutics to combat a serious
eye disorder and contributed to the development of new
oncology therapeutics.[7]
2014:Emmanuelle Charpentier, Professor at the Hannover Medical School and Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI), Germany and The Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS), Umeå University, Sweden and
Jennifer Doudna, a
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and Li Ka Shing Professor of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Structural Biology, University of California, Berkeley, for their work on a new method for precise and facile genomic editing. [10]
2017:Douglas C. Wallace, Founder and Director, Center for Mitochondrial and Epigenomic Medicine, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia; Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, for pioneering the field of human mitochondrial genetics and its application to the study of disease, aging, and patterns of human migration.
2018:James P. Allison, Professor and Chair, Department of Immunology, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, for pioneering a novel and effective strategy to harness the immune system for treating solid tumor cancers.
2019:Franz-Ulrich Hartl, Director, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry and
Arthur Horwich, Sterling Professor of Genetics and Professor of Pediatrics,
Yale School of Medicine and Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, for their revolutionary insights into chaperone-mediated protein folding.