FIRE Board of Directors Member Richard Losick Receives Horwitz Prize

Briefly departing from our usual writings on FIRE's defense of free speech at campuses around the country, the Harvard Gazette reports that FIRE Board of Directors member Richard Losick is one of the three recipients of this year's Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize. Losick is a longtime professor at Harvard University, where he is the Maria Moors Cabot Professor of Biology. The prize, awarded by Columbia University for "outstanding basic research in the fields of biology or biochemistry," is widely considered a precursor for the Nobel Prize; 42 of 87 recipients have gone on to receive the Nobel since the Horwitz Prize was first awarded in 1967.

Of Losick's research, the Gazette writes: 

Losick's work has centered on revealing the nature of three-dimensional regulation in bacterial cells, and has provided a basis for understanding the properties of cellular asymmetry. He also dissected the gene regulatory mechanisms that govern systems for cellular differentiation. In addition, he discovered the interplay of spatial dynamics and regulatory mechanisms that yield morphologically differentiated cells with different cell fates. Over the past two decades, Losick has also collaborated with [co-recipient Lucy] Shapiro on eight original papers that examined the structure and biology of the bacterial cell.

Congratulations from all of us at FIRE to Richard Losick on this momentous achievement!