Gottschling elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences

Cell biologist Dr. Dan Gottschling of the Hutchinson Center's Basic Sciences Division has been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies and independent policy research centers.

Gottschling studies yeast cells for clues to the molecular underpinnings of life—clues that he hopes will have parallels in humans. He uses this model organism to understand the relationship between cancer and aging to determine whether a fundamental process exists in all cells as they get older that might explain the increased incidence of cancer after age 40.

He is among 229 leaders in the sciences, social sciences, humanities, arts, business and public affairs who have been elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 2010 class of fellows. This year’s class includes winners of the Nobel, Pulitzer and Shaw prizes, MacArthur and Guggenheim fellows and Grammy, Tony and Oscar award winners.

The new class will be inducted at a ceremony Oct. 9 at the Academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.

Other Academy members at the Center are Dr. Lee Hartwell, president and director of the Center and recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his work in yeast genetics; Dr. Linda Buck, who in 2004 received the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for her groundbreaking work on the network responsible for our sense of smell; Dr. Mark Groudine, the Center’s deputy director and former director of the Basic Sciences Division; Dr. Robert Eisenman, a leader in the field of oncogenes, aberrantly regulated genes that cause cancer; and the late Dr. Harold Weintraub, an international leader in the field of molecular biology.

Founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock and other scholar-patriots, the Academy elects the finest minds and most influential leaders from each generation, including George Washington, Ben Franklin, Daniel Webster, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill. The current membership includes more than 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.