Four from Johns Hopkins elected to AAAS

Four Johns Hopkins University researchers are among the 388 new fellows elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The JHU honorees are L. Mario Amzel, of the School of Medicine's Department of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry; Philip Cole, of the School of Medicine's Department of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences; Valina Dawson, of the School of Medicine's Department of Neurology; and Stephen Murray, of the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the School of Arts and Sciences.

AAAS fellows are elected by their peers and honored for their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. The names of the awardees were published in the _Science on Nov. 29. The newly elected fellows will be awarded a certificate and a rosette pin during the AAAS Fellows Forum at the 2014 AAAS annual meeting in Chicago on Saturday, Feb. 15.

Amzel was elected for his distinguished contributions to the understanding of protein structure and function, especially as it relates to the immune system, infectious disease, and cancer. His research team studies the chemistry of reactions carried out by enzymes.

Cole was recognized for his distinguished contributions to the field of chemical biology, particularly the development and applications of chemical approaches to understanding protein structure and functions. His laboratory studies the way in which the addition of small chemical groups affects the functioning of proteins. His work has broad implications for everything from cellular signaling to gene regulation to metabolism.

Dawson was chosen for discoveries regarding nerve cell death and survival. Her work is helping us to understand why nerve cells die due to disease or trauma and what we can do to boost the body's ability to replace them.

Murray, who conducts research in high-energy astrophysics and X-ray astronomy, was elected for contributions to high-resolution X-ray imaging spectroscopy, and for founding the NASA Astrophysics Data System that has transformed the way we access information. The data system, used by virtually all astronomers and astrophysicists worldwide, has provided free access to the published literature in their field.

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