James Broach, distinguished professor and chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Penn State College of Medicine, has received a Yeast Genetics Meeting Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions in the field of yeast genetics and outstanding community service.
The award was presented at the Yeast Genetics Meeting, part of The Allied Genetics 2016 Conference, July 13-17 in Orlando. The award is presented to a single investigator every two years.
“It recognizes giants in the field and I’m honored to be considered among them,” Broach said.
Broach’s lab has had several notable findings and he’s published more than 175 articles. His group was the first to functionally express a human gene — an oncogene — in a yeast cell, which is a way of testing the function of a human gene.
His lab also developed techniques that have evolved into the principal method for mapping human disease genes and was the first group to show that the way DNA is packaged in chromatin determines whether or not the underlying genes are read out.
Broach received a commemorative glass bowl and was invited to give a talk at the conference about his career.
Broach is also director of the Penn State Institute for Personalized Medicine and professor emeritus at Princeton University. Read more of his biography here.