The Blavatnik Family Foundation(link is external) and The New York Academy of Sciences have honored three women scientists, including Markita Landry, Associate Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, with the Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists(link is external)
Each of the women are leaders in their field:
- Markita del Carpio Landry, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley (Chemical Engineering) is named the Laureate in Chemical Sciences for pioneering nanoscale chemical tools to address disparate challenges in human health and sustainability.
- Cigall Kadoch, Ph.D., Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School & Howard Hughes Medical Institute, is named the Laureate in Life Sciences for working to discover and characterize chromatin remodeling complexes, understanding how their disruption leads to human disease, and developing a new class of therapeutics.
- Britney E. Schmidt, Ph.D., Cornell University (Physical Earth Sciences) is named the Laureate in Physical Sciences & Engineering for advancing climate science and planetary habitability studies through groundbreaking research on ice-ocean interactions and innovative exploration of Earth’s polar regions and icy planetary bodies.
Markita was awarded the Blavatnik prize for contributions to the development of neurochemical probes -- tiny tools -- that enable visualization of brain chemistry, and its imbalances in neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases. Her lab's work in the development of tools to genetically engineer plants was also recognized for this award. This important work is helping to tackle big problems in health and the environment, paving the way for advances in more resilient crops and developing new treatments for neurological disease ranging from Alzheimer’s to autism spectrum disorder.
Each laureate will receive $250,000, the largest unrestricted prize given to promising researchers in the U.S. who are under 42. The winners were chosen by three separate juries, each made up of leading scientists in life sciences, chemical sciences, and physical sciences and engineering. Additionally, 15 finalists will each get $15,000. The awards will be presented at a gala ceremony on October 1 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where the 2024 Laureates and Finalists will be celebrated alongside the Blavatnik Regional Awards winners.