Yasemin Sancak receives Harold M. Weintraub Award

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. –Yasemin Sancak, a researcher in the lab of Whitehead Member David Sabatini, has received a 2010 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award, which honors outstanding biology graduate students for the quality, originality, and significance of their work.

Sancak, who recently defended her doctoral thesis, has studied how cells respond to nutrients and initiate growth.

“The Weintraub award is a very well-deserved honor for Yasemin,” says Sabatini. “Her discoveries have changed the types of questions we and others in the field are asking and I am sure we will be hearing about great findings from her during her post-doc."

The Weintraub award is given out annually by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, in Seattle, Washington. The 13 award recipients for 2010 receive an honorarium and will present their research at a special a scientific symposium in Seattle.

In 2003, former Whitehead graduate student Kevin Eggan received the Weintraub Award when he was in the lab of Whitehead Member Rudolf Jaenisch.