DOE Scientists to Receive Franklin Institute Medals

Summary

Jillian F. Banfield, a University of California, Berkeley, biogeochemist and geomicrobiologist, will receive the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Earth and Environmental Science, “for discovering the underlying principles of mineral formation and alteration by microbes, which are critical to understanding the form, composition, and distribution of minerals in the presence of living organisms.” Using cutting-edge technology, Banfield has fully characterized this unique microbial ecosystem by sequencing the genomes of the different species of bacteria and cataloguing the proteins they produce. Banfield has been supported by DOE for the past decade. Banfield also is one of five recipients of the 2011 For Women in Science awards from the L’Oréal Foundation and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and will received this award on March 3, 2011, at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

George Church of the Harvard Medical School is recipient of the Franklin Institute’s Bower Award for “innovative and creative contributions to genomic science, including the development of DNA sequencing technologies, as well as for his subsequent efforts to promote personal genomics and synthetic biology.” Church’s research has been supported by DOE since 1988. During this time he has been a leader in bringing improvements in cost and speed to bioanalytical technologies and their applications across the life sciences. Many technologies flowing from his projects have been commercialized.

Banfield and Church are two of seven recipients of the 2011 Franklin Medal, presented every year to “preeminent trailblazers in science, business and technology.”