SAN FRANCISCO, CA—October 11, 2011— The California Academy of Sciences today will induct Gladstone Institutes Senior Investigator Bruce Conklin, MD, as an Academy Fellow, bestowing yet another honor on one of San Francisco's most esteemed cardiovascular scientists.
Fellowship into the California Academy of Sciences is one of the highest honors available for California-based researchers in the natural sciences. Dr. Conklin, who is also a professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), has been chosen as one of 15 Academy Fellows to be inducted this year at an awards ceremony this evening in San Francisco. He is the first scientist at Gladstone, which is affiliated with UCSF, to receive this honor.
“Gladstone and the California Academy of Sciences are two of the most accomplished and entrepreneurial scientific institutions in the world,” said William S. Price, III, a member of the Academy's Board of Trustees. “We are confident that Bruce's induction as an Academy Fellow will serve to strengthen the alliance between them—maintaining the Bay Area's position at the forefront of cutting-edge scientific and medical research.”
Dr. Conklin, who's been a Gladstone scientist since 1995, studies how hormones direct the fetal development of complex tissues such as those in the heart. His work at Gladstone, a leading and independent biomedical-research organization, uses stem cells from patients with life-threatening cardiac diseases to understand the genetic causes and develop new treatments.
Throughout his Gladstone career, Dr. Conklin has promoted innovation and collaboration with scientists from a variety of disciplines. In 2007, for example, Dr. Conklin set up Wikipathways.org, an open platform for collaborating on and documenting interactions between thousands of proteins, and which is now integrated into Wikipedia. In the late 1990s, Dr. Conklin worked with BayGenomics to organize a public collection of 50,000 genetically modified mouse stem cells and in 2006 he helped establish the Gladstone-CIRM Research Scholars program in collaboration with the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine. In 2008 Scientific American honored him with its SciAm 50 Award for visionary work.
“As a long time resident of San Francisco, I have always supported the Academy's mission both to promote public engagement in science and to participate in high caliber scientific research,” said Dr. Conklin. “I'm honored to represent Gladstone as an Academy Fellow and I hope to foster scientific exchange between our two great research institutions.”
The California Academy of Sciences is committed to innovative research, educational outreach and finding new and innovative ways to engage and inspire the public. It is the only institution in the world that comprises a museum, an aquarium, a planetarium and top–tier research programs in the natural sciences under one roof.
Academy Fellows are a governing group of 300 distinguished scientists who have made notable contributions in one or more fields of the natural sciences. They are nominated by their colleagues and selected each year by the Academy's Board of Trustees. Academy Fellowship is for life. As a Fellow, Dr. Conklin will have greater opportunities to collaborate with Academy scientists, while also promoting Gladstone research programs to a much wider audience.
“We are extremely gratified that the Academy has recognized Bruce's achievements in the field of cardiovascular research,” said R. Sanders Williams, MD, president of Gladstone. “This is yet another validation of the outstanding quality of research produced by Gladstone investigators.”
Dr. Bruce Conklin is a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institute for Cardiovascular Disease. He is also a professor of Medicine, Medical Genetics and Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), with which Gladstone is affiliated.
About the California Academy of Sciences
The Academy is an international center for scientific education and research and is at the forefront of efforts to understand and protect the diversity of Earth's living things. It is located in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.
About the Gladstone Institutes
Gladstone is an independent and nonprofit biomedical-research organization dedicated to accelerating the pace of scientific discovery and innovation to prevent illness and cure patients suffering from cardiovascular disease, neurological disease, or viral infections. Gladstone is affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco.