Profile of Lily and Yuh Nung Jan, winners of the 2017 Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

The 2017 Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science has been awarded to Lily Y. Jan and Yuh Nung Jan, professors in the department of physiology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators. The Jans are being recognized for demonstrating how ion channels contribute to neuronal signaling and how neurons acquire their cell fates and morphologies. Lily and Yuh Nung Jan. Image courtesy of Cindy Chew (photographer). Side view of a Drosophila larva, with body wall innervated by two types of sensory neurons (green and red). Image courtesy of Chun Han (Cornell University, Ithaca, NY). Dendritic arbor of Drosophila larval neuron. Image courtesy of Lily and Yuh Nung Jan. Vilcek Prizes—accompanied by an unrestricted cash award of $100,000 each—have been awarded annually since 2006 to prominent foreign-born biomedical scientists and artists. To recognize a younger generation of distinguished immigrant scientists, in 2009 the Vilcek Foundation also established annual Prizes for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science. Currently, three scientists, 38 years of age or younger, are selected for the latter awards, each carrying a cash prize of $50,000. The Jans are the first Chinese-born scientists to receive the main biomedical prize awarded by the Foundation. Today, numerous Chinese American scientists play invaluable roles in science and technology in the United States. By contrast, when the Jans arrived in this country in 1968 to pursue graduate studies, there were few scientists of Chinese origin in laboratories in this country. Perhaps even more significantly, the 2017 Vilcek Prizes reflect the fact that the proportion of foreign-born researchers among highly accomplished American scientists greatly exceeds the fraction of foreign-born people living in the United States. The remarkable achievements of these scientists attest to the vital and well-documented role of immigrants in sustaining the American economy. Beginning in 1979, neurologist … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: pnair{at}nas.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1