Beckman Young Investigator Award

Brent Stockwell, a professor of biological sciences and of chemistry at Columbia University, has been named a 2007 Beckman Young Investigator for his research into undiscovered mechanisms controlling cell death. He is among 16 U.S. researchers chosen this year.

The award, given by the Beckman Foundation, provides support to promising faculty members engaged in the early stages of academic careers in the chemical and life sciences. Stockwell will receive $300,000 over three years.

He is researching novel cell-death pathways involved in cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. His current projects include elucidating a novel voltage-dependent anion-channel-mediated cell-death pathway that is selectively lethal to tumor cells, discovering novel cell-death pathways activated by mutant huntingtin protein in Huntington's disease, and synthesizing and using affinity reagents for discovering novel target proteins.