NYU
School of Medicine Faculty Member Receives France's Highest
Scientific Honor
The
French Academy of Sciences selected Dr. David Sabatini as
the recipient of its highest honor for 2003, the Grande Medaille
D'Or (the Grand Gold Medal), in recognition of his scientific
contributions to Cell Biology. Previous recipients of the
Medal include many illustrious scientists, such as Louis
Pasteur, Pierre and Marie Curie, Gustave Eiffel, and Henri
Poincare.
The
Grande Medaille was presented to Dr. Sabatini at a formal
ceremony held in Paris under the Grand Coupole of the
Institut de France.
The
Medal is given every year to a French or foreign scientist
working in one of the many disciplines represented in the
Academy, which include the mathematical, physical, chemical,
natural, biological and biomedical sciences. The award recognizes
a decisive contribution to science in one of these areas
and emphasizes the originality of the discoveries, their
international impact, and the awardee's role in creating
a true school of research. The rules of the Academy
stipulate that the work of the recipient of the medal must
have been carried out in an important area of fundamental
research, and must have resulted in new insights and a greater
understanding of the discipline in which the award was given.
The
Academy cited Dr. Sabatini's work as having revolutionized
research in Cell Biology through his innovations in electron
microscopy and through seminal biochemical studies on the
sorting mechanisms that generate the organizational complexity
of the cell.
In
the early 1960's Dr. Sabatini introduced glutaraldehyde as
a reagent that preserves the fine molecular architecture
of the cell, as well as many of its enzymatic activities.
His methods led to the discovery of new structures within
the cell, most notably microtubules and other components
of the cell cytoskeleton. They also helped to elucidate the
functional role of subcellular organelles, opening many new
avenues of research in cell biology.
Proteins
are the most important functional components of cells and
much of Dr. Sabatini's research dealt with the mechanisms
and pathways, which newly synthesized protein, distributes
molecules to their sites of function within the cell. His
work on the synthesis of proteins by ribosomes attached to
the membranes of the organelle known as the "Endoplasmic
Reticulum" set the foundations for the "Signal Hypothesis",
which he formulated in 1971 together with his then associate,
Gunter Blobel, the Rockefeller University scientist, who,
in 1999, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.
This hypothesis explains how secretory proteins, such as
insulin and growth hormone, synthesized in the deep interior
of glandular cells, begin their journey toward the blood
stream. It also applies to many nonsecretory proteins
that share their subcellular site of synthesis with secretory
proteins but are subsequently sorted to various destinations
within the cell. This is the case for many important receptors
that remain anchored at the cell surface, where they recognize
hormones and growth factors that activate cellular response
pathways.
Defects
in protein sorting and transport underlie many diseases,
such as cystic fibrosis, Alzheimer's and certain forms of
hypercholesterolemia that lead to atherosclerosis.
Sabatini
has also carried out pioneering research using cultured epithelial
cells of kidney origin, which provided great insights into
the protein trafficking mechanisms that are responsible for
the generation and maintenance of the polarized architecture
of epithelial cells. Cells of this type, such as those that
line the digestive tract and cavities within various organs,
form layers that serve to separate different physiological
compartments and control transport of molecules between them.
A major achievement of his laboratory was the landmark discovery
that different types of enveloped viruses, a class of viruses
that includes influenza, rabies and HIV, bud from the cellular
membrane of epithelial cells with characteristic polarity,
i.e. the viral particles are released either from the apical
surface of the cell, which faces an external space that communicates
with the environment, or the basolateral one, which confronts
the internal milieu of the body and is accessible to the
bloodstream. These findings explain the routes by which viral
infections spread within the organism and throughout the
population. They also served as a foundation for a continuing
stream of discoveries over the last thirty years, throughout
the world, that illuminate how the complex organization of
the cell is achieved.
Dr.
Sabatini is a native of Argentina, and he received his medical
degree in that country from the University of Litoral in
Rosario in 1954 and his Ph.D. from The Rockefeller University
in 1966 where he remained on the faculty until 1972, when
he became Professor and Chairman of the Department of Cell
Biology at the NYU School of Medicine.
Dr.
Sabatini is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences,
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical
Society and the Institute of Medicine. In 1986, he
was awarded, together with Gunter Blobel, the E.B. Wilson
medal from the American Society for Cell Biology, and in
1988 he received the Charles-Leopold Mayer Grand Prix of
the French Academy of Sciences.#
