Science took hold of Brenda A. Schulman early. She still remembers when her high-school biology teacher revealed the myriad roles of ATP (adenosine triphosphate) in a cell. Also while in high school, Schulman worked in a university lab that was exploring how genes are activated, and she went on to win the national Bausch & Lomb Science Award, given to students who have demonstrated unusual academic achievement in science.

Now head of her own lab at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, in Memphis, Tennessee, Schulman works to integrate her knowledge of structural biology, biochemistry, cell biology, and genetics to address a central scientific question: How can cells respond quickly to the changing demands and cues of their environments?

The interests of Stanford University bioengineer Stephen R. Quake unite physics, biology, and biotechnology. With a toolbox that draws on the fields of mathematics, engineering, and materials chemistry, Quake has developed technology that will allow scientists to integrate several complex experiments on a single device and devised an entirely new approach to the vexing challenge of growing protein crystals.

To describe new investigator Joseph DeRisi, whose lab is at the University of California, San Francisco, as a molecular biologist who has made major contributions to malaria research would be accurate, but it would also be incomplete. He might be described more precisely as a scientific polymath who delights in tinkering with new technology, moves readily among disciplines, shares what he knows as widely as possible, and dives fearlessly into new scientific challenges. DeRisi helped pioneer the use of DNA microarray technology as a graduate student. He now uses the same approach to study the activity of the full range of malaria genes and has already generated provocative insights.

At the California Institute of Technology, Linda C. Hsieh-Wilson brings her chemist’s training—and indefatigable curiosity—to neurobiology. Instead of concentrating exclusively on the “big picture,” as some neurobiologists often do, Hsieh-Wilson is focusing on a less well-studied—but perhaps even more important—area: How does the right chemistry keep the brain working properly? Her work integrates organic chemistry with neurobiology to understand how key carbohydrates, and their various derivatives, alter the structure and function of proteins in the brain.

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