Biologist and Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Alexander Rich Distinguished Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Professor Szostak was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, along with Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol W. Greider, for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres.
Prof. Szostak has made significant contributions to the field of genetics and is credited with the construction of the world’s first yeast artificial chromosome. Szostak lab focuses on the challenges of understanding the origin of life on Earth and the construction of artificial cellular life in the laboratory.
He has received Hans Sigrist and Dr A. H. Heineken prizes, a Lasker award, the United States National Academy of Sciences Award in Molecular Biology and the Genetics Society of America Medal.