PRESS RELEASE

H. Robert Horvitz , Ph.D., Receives The Bristol-Myers Squibb Award For Distinguished Achievement In Neuroscience Research
His Discovery of the Genes Responsible for Programmed Cell Death Revealed that Cell Death Is an Active Biological Process and Defined a Genetic Pathway Conserved in Humans

NEW YORK, NEW YORK (August 30, 2001) -- H. Robert Horvitz, Ph.D., will receive the Fourteenth Annual Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Neuroscience Research for his landmark discovery that specific genes control programmed cell death, or apoptosis. Dr. Horvitz will receive the $50,000 cash award and a silver medallion at a dinner to be held in his honor.

Dr. Horvitz's discovery of a genetic pathway responsible for programmed cell death revealed that apoptosis is an active, naturally occurring and specific biological process, much like cell division and cell differentiation. Scientists have since shown that this pathway is shared among organisms, including humans, and is involved in a variety of human diseases, including neurological disorders.

"Dr. Horvitz's discovery fundamentally altered how scientists view the developmental processes generating the central nervous system," said Frank D. Yocca, Ph.D., Executive Director, Neuroscience Drug Discovery, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute. "By identifying the genes and proteins responsible for cell death, Dr. Horvitz opened the door to the possibility of new interventions in a variety of human diseases."

Dr. Horvitz, a neurobiologist, developmental biologist and geneticist, is David H. Koch Professor of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Neurobiologist and Geneticist at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Dr. Horvitz performed his graduate studies at Harvard in the laboratories of Drs. James Watson and Walter Gilbert, receiving his Ph.D. in biology in 1974. He then joined Dr. Sydney Brenner at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, and began his studies of the development and behavior of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Dr. Horvitz's early work helped lead to the complete description of the cell lineage of C. elegans, the only animal for which the developmental origin of all its cells, 1,090 in total, is known. The complete cellular anatomy, including the complete wiring diagram of the nervous system, have been elucidated and Dr. Horvitz and his colleagues have studied many genes that play specific roles in development and behavior.

The concept of apoptosis as a morphological form of cell death had been proposed in 1972, just two years before Dr. Horvitz began his research on C. elegans. At the time, there was no evidence that apoptosis was an active biological process and no indication of the mechanism responsible for programmed cell death.

By studying cell death in this tiny roundworm, Dr. Horvitz discovered and characterized specific genes responsible for apoptosis, leading to a more mechanistic understanding of basic developmental processes that sculpt the nervous system. His studies led to the finding that the genes and proteins responsible for apoptosis in C. elegans are broadly conserved among organisms and highly similar to those that act in apoptosis in humans.

Abnormalities in programmed cell death have been associated with human diseases, including certain cancers. Specific nerve cell deaths are known to be responsible for the clinical features of many human neurological disorders, including the neurodegenerative diseases, as well as stroke and traumatic brain injury.

Dr. Horvitz and his colleagues have characterized three genes that cause cells to die, one that protects cells from dying, seven that function in the engulfment of dying cells by their neighbors, one that is involved in destroying the debris generated by cell corpses, and two that specify which cells are to live and which are to die. Recently, Dr. Horvitz and his colleagues announced that certain "engulfing" cells in C. elegans, thought to act merely as a clean-up crew that disposes of dying cells and their harmful by-products, actually play a role in helping cells die. This discovery may have implications for the development of human agents that could inhibit engulfment, and hence death, in situations in which cells are poised between survival and death, such as in stroke and traumatic brain injury.

The Bristol-Myers Squibb Unrestricted Biomedical Research Grants Program that provides the Neuroscience Award was initiated in 1977. The program provides no-strings-attached funding in scientific fields, including cancer, cardiovascular, infectious diseases, metabolic disease, neuroscience and nutrition research. The Distinguished Achievement Award of $50,000 is awarded annually in each of the categories. Bristol-Myers Squibb is an $18 billion diversified global health and personal care company whose mission is to extend and enhance human life.

For more information, contact: Mary Griggs, Bristol-Myers Squibb, 609-252-5676, or Deborah Halber, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 617-258-9276