Award celebrates key discoveries made by physician-scientists
From the WashU School of Medicine News…
Michael S. Diamond, MD, PhD, an infectious diseases specialist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been chosen as the recipient of the American Society for Clinical Investigation’s 2019 Stanley J. Korsmeyer Award. He is being honored for his contributions to understanding the molecular basis of disease caused by globally emerging RNA viruses such as the Zika, West Nile and chikungunya viruses.
Diamond, the Herbert S. Gasser Professor of Medicine, is noted for leading groundbreaking studies into Zika, including why and how it causes devastating neurological damage to the developing fetus. Further, Diamond has been at the forefront of research into West Nile virus, which began causing brain infections in the United States in the early 2000s. He identified the immune cells and molecules involved in controlling West Nile infection.
The award is named after Stanley J. Korsmeyer, MD, an internationally known cancer researcher and beloved former Washington University medical oncologist whose groundbreaking discoveries opened new doors to understanding and treating cancer. At age 54, Korsmeyer died of lung cancer, though he had never smoked. Today, he remains one of the most widely cited researchers in the world.