The 2016 Marjory Stephenson Prize will be awarded to Steve Oliver, Professor of Systems Biology & Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Cambridge Systems Biology Centre.
The Prize is named after Society founding member and former President Marjory Stephenson. The Prize is awarded to an individual who has made exceptional contributions to the discipline of microbiology. The recipient is awarded £1,000.
Steve is at the forefront of Systems Biology research and was co-creator of ‘Eve’, a robot scientist designed to search for new drug candidates for malaria and neglected tropical diseases. In 1992, Steve led a team that published the complete sequence of chromosome III from Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the first chromosome of any organism to be sequenced, which ultimately led to the publication of the complete S. cerevisiae genome in 1996.
Steve said of his award: "I've been a member of the Society since I was an undergrad student, so this prize means an awful lot to me. It is also, I hope, a recognition of the fact that studying microbes as model organisms continues to advance not only microbiology, but the life sciences as a whole."
The Microbiology Society is a membership organisation for scientists who work in all areas of microbiology. It is the largest learned microbiological society in Europe with a worldwide membership based in universities, industry, hospitals, research institutes and schools.