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Home > Prizes > Prize Recipients > Amit Choudhary

Amit Choudhary

2019 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science

Location

Boston, MA

Title

Assistant professor of medicine, Harvard Institute of Medicine

Area(s) of Research

Physics; biology; chemistry; CRISPR-Cas9; genome-editing

Education

University of Wisconsin, Madison (PhD, biophysics);
Indian Institute of Science (MS, chemical science);
University of Delhi (BSc)

Country of Birth

India

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Amit Choudhary sitting at a table in his office.

Amit Choudhary grew up in a farming community in northeastern India where most kids barely completed high school. His father was a store manager, and his mother cared for the family. Choudhary dreamed of being a scientist, and from an early age, he fed his scientific curiosity by tinkering with chemicals.

He became the first in his family to venture abroad and obtain a doctoral degree. Choudhary pursued graduate studies in biophysics, which marked a turning point in his career. He unveiled the hallmarks of a fundamental force of nature that had largely eluded scientists, dubbed “n to pi star interaction,” crucial for the structural integrity of biomolecules like proteins and DNA. Choudhary’s work suggests that that the force may have played a role in generating the building blocks of primordial RNA molecules, thought to have jump-started life on Earth.

Those early findings signaled Choudhary’s scientific promise, securing him a position at Harvard, where he worked with chemical biologist Stuart Schreiber at the Broad Institute researching pancreatic beta cells. These cells secrete the metabolic hormone insulin, and dysfunction or loss of pancreatic beta cells results in diabetes.

Scientific equations written in dry erase marker on a window of a chemistry lab bench.

Choudhary addressed beta cell biology from an oblique angle — by examining the extraordinary physiology of binge-eating snakes like Burmese pythons. He has shown that some actors that protect binge-eating snakes’ pancreases could have similarly protective effects on human beta cells, which might in turn lead to better diabetic drugs.

While continuing to study beta-cell biology, Choudhary has developed technological solutions for diseases that plague the developing world. His current work is centered on CRISPR-Cas9, a tool that has enabled researchers to rapidly and precisely edit the genomes of living organisms. Eventually, his efforts could lead to ways to correct genetic mutations underlying diseases like monogenic diabetes and combat insect vectors that transmit malaria.

Amit Choudhary in his lab.

Awards and Accomplishments

  • Career Award at the Scientific Interface, Burroughs Wellcome Fund (2014–2019)
  • Junior Fellow, Society of Fellows, Harvard University  (2011–2015)
  • Protein Society Young Investigator Travel Grant, American Protein Society (2010, 2011)

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Jury Members

2019 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science

Heran Darwin

Professor of Microbiology, New York University School of Medicine

Laurie Dempsey

Senior Editor, Nature Immunology, Nature Publishing Group

Yibin Kang

Warner-Lambert Parke-Davis Professor of Molecular Biology, Princeton University

Harmit S. Malik

Principal Investigator, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

Peter Palese

Horace W. Goldsmith Professor and Chair of Microbiology, Professor of Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Leslie Vosshall

Robin Chemers Neustein Professor, The Rockefeller University

Jedd Wolchok

Lloyd J. Old Chair for Clinical Investigation, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
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Related Prize Recipients

Feng Zhang

Feng Zhang receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science for using light to manipulate the activities of brain cells in living animals and for enabling rapid alterations to the genomes of living organisms.
Portrait of Feng Zhang

Harmit Malik

Harmit Malik receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science for uncovering evolutionary insights into the phenomenon of genetic conflict, which arises in a wide range of cellular scenarios and carries implications for proper cell division and immunity against viruses, among others.
Harmit Malik

Shixin Liu

Shixin Liu receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise for applying cutting-edge biophysical tools to directly visualize, manipulate, and understand the physiological function of nanometer-scale biomolecular machines including DNA replication and transcription complexes at the single-molecule level.
Portrait of Shixin Liu.

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