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Home > Prizes > Prize Recipients > Lily and Yuh-Nung Jan

Lily and Yuh-Nung Jan

2017 Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science

Location

San Francisco, CA

Title

Neuroscientists, University of California, San Francisco

Area(s) of Research

Biomedical Science; neuroscience; genetics; dendrite development; biophysics

Education

California Institute of Technology; National Taiwan University

Country of Birth

Taiwan

Links to learn more about Lily and Yuh-Nung Jan's work
  • ucsf.edu

Tags
biomedical science biophysics dendrite development genetics neuroscience taiwan UCSF
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Lily and Yuh-Nung Jan, neuroscientists at the University of California, San Francisco, are co-adventurers on a four-decade quest to unravel the mysteries surrounding nervous system development and function.

The Jans’ collective efforts have led to a clear-eyed understanding of how neurons — the brain’s cellular building blocks — form and function and how ion-conducting channels control the flow of electrical signals through the nervous system.

Pictured from the waist-up, Lily and Yuh-Nung Jan stand in front of the busy walls of their office.

Raised in nurturing homes in Taiwan, the Jans nursed a love of science from a young age. In the mid-1960s, they were admitted to the prestigious National Taiwan University, where they studied theoretical physics. Their separate paths crossed shortly before graduation, during a trip to a nature reserve in central Taiwan; among lush forests and sloping mountains, the Jans fell in love. Together, they made plans to attend graduate school in the United States, focusing on theoretical physics at California Institute of Technology.

After two years of studying physics, they changed course, inspired by their mentor Max Delbrück — who won the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for uncovering the genetic structure of viruses — and increasingly enamored with biology.

Lily and Yuh-Nung Jan stand on the plant-lined path outside of their research facility.

Landing faculty appointments at the University of California, San Francisco, in 1979, the Jans began to assemble their legacy in neuroscience. Chief among their fundamental insights are their discoveries on how neurons arise from their progenitors, acquire distinct identities and shapes, and establish baroque circuits in the brain and peripheral nervous system with seeming ease. They also uncovered the principles and genes that control the process by which the slender branches of neurons, called dendrites, grow into densely interlacing forests — which may hold a key to unraveling nerve regeneration, touch perception, and human mental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia.

Further findings of theirs have brought into focus the central role of ion-conducting channels in sustaining normal cellular function and enabled fine-grained analysis of conditions in which the channels go awry.

 

Awards and Accomplishments

  • Gruber Prize in Neuroscience (2012)
  • Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences (2011)
  • Edward M. Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2010)
  • Ralph Gerard Prize, Society for Neuroscience (2009)
  • Society of Chinese Bioscientists in America Presidential Award (2006)
  • National Institute of Health MERIT Award (2006)
  • Distinguished Alumni Award, California Institute of Technology (2006)
  • S. Cole Award, Biophysical Society (2004)
  • 38th Faculty Lecturer Award, University of California, San Francisco (1995)
  • Alden Spencer Award and Lectureship, Columbia University (1988)
  • Klingstein Fellowship Award (1983-1983)
Tags
biomedical science biophysics dendrite development genetics neuroscience taiwan UCSF

Jury Members

2017 Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science

Titia de Lange

Leon Hess Professor of Cell Biology, The Rockefeller University

Dan R. Littman

Helen L. and Martin S. Kimmel Professor of Molecular Immunology, New York University School of Medicine

Joan Massagué

Director, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Ruslan Medzhitov

David W. Wallace Professor of Immunology, Yale School of Medicine

Peter Walter

Professor and Chair of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco
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