Media Contact:
Julie Kiefer
Director, Research Communications, Ï㽶ÊÓƵ of Utah Health
Email: Julie.Kiefer@hsc.utah.edu
Wesley Sundquist, PhD, chair of the Department of Biochemistry at the Ï㽶ÊÓƵ of Utah, together with molecular biologist Scott Emr, PhD, director of the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology at Cornell Ï㽶ÊÓƵ. The Horwitz Prize recognizes investigators whose contributions in the fields of biology or biochemistry are deemed major contributions to medical science, with 51 of its 111 recipients later winning Nobel Prizes.
Sundquist and Emr are recognized for discovery of the ESCRT (Endosomal Sorting Complexes Required for Transport) pathway and its biological functions. Sundquist's work on HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, revealed how the virus uses ESCRT machinery for replication. Sundquist’s work on HIV assembly also helped to lay the foundation for a new highly effective, long-lasting drug developed by Gilead Sciences that has been shown to prevent HIV transmission in large phase 3 clinical trials.