Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project Wins Prestigious Newcomb Cleveland Prize

Summary

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) will present Gerald Rubin and Susan Celniker of the Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project (BDGP) with the prestigious Newcomb Cleveland Prize for their leading contributions to the paper “The Genome Sequence of Drosophila melanogaster” which appeared March 24, 2000, in the journal Science. BDGP is a partnership between Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley.

Established in 1923, the award is the Association’s oldest, with funds donated by Newcomb Cleveland of New York City. The 2000 award recognizes an outstanding paper published in Science during the period June 1, 1999 through May 31, 2000. The award will be bestowed at the AAAS annual meeting in San Francisco on Saturday, February 17. BDGP will receive half of the $5,000 prize and two commemorative medals. The other half of the prize will go to J. Craig Venter and Mark Adams of Celera Genomics, BDGP’s collaborators in the Drosophila sequencing effort. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s DOE Human Genome Center provided DNA sequencing technology support for the initial stages of the sequencing effort.