Young Investigator Award 2012

Elizabeth Murchison, Ph.D. of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK, was presented with the Eppendorf Young Investigator Award 2012 during a ceremony at the EMBL Advanced Training Centre in Heidelberg, Germany, in May.

Elizabeth received the prize for her discoveries concerning a deadly cancer that is spreading among the endemic population of Tasmanian devils in Tasmania and threatening the survival of the species. She found that the cancers are all derived from the same clone, leading to the conclusion that cancer cells are physically transferred between animals.

The results obtained by Elizabeth Murchison are ground-breaking and offer novel approaches towards the understanding of clonal cancers. Furthermore, her findings have been instrumental for developing strategies aimed at saving the Tasmanian devil from extinction.