The European Molecular Biology Organization has created the Jean Vance Award in honour of DoM's Dr. Jean Vance

On Oct. 1, Dr. Jean Vance (Professor Emeritus, Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism) will be presenting the 2023 Jean Vance Award to Dr. Maya Schuldiner at the Interorganelle Contacts Biology Conference in Italy.

This award is being given in recognition of Jean's novel finding of membrane contact sites between intracellular organelles that are involved in inter-organelle communications. These observations have now spawned a major new field of biology. 

When Dr. Jean Vance first isolated and named mitochondria-associated membranes (MAM) in 1990, people didn't pay much attention. Three decades later, Vance's MAMs discovery is seen as a landmark―one that has come to transform scientists' understanding of how cells maintain order and function, inspiring a field of study that some believe could eventually transform the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, diabetes and neurodegeneration diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Read more about Dr. Vance in Professor's discovery of cellular membrance structure leads to advances in understanding neurodegeneration, cancer and mitochondrial diseases (Jan. 28, 2019).

The EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organization) has established the Jean Vance Award to be given in alternate years at the Interorganelle Contacts Biology Conference. The award will be presented this year on Oct.1 in Italy to Dr. Maya Schuldiner from Israel.