The Dean’s Postdoctoral Prize Lecture will be awarded to one UCSF postdoctoral fellow each year. The purpose of this award is to recognize the outstanding creative and independent research efforts of a postdoctoral scholar. The awardee will present his/her research at an annual lecture and will receive a cash prize of $1000.

This year's awardee is Marco Vignuzzi, a postdoctoral fellow in Raul Andino’s lab. Marco’s work has directly tested key postulates of the viral quasispecies theory and his results have profound implications for understanding viral epidemiology and pathogenesis as well as antiviral drug and vaccine design.

Marco will present his research in a talk to the UCSF community on Tuesday, February 21st, 2006 at 4:00 p.m. in the Genentech Hall auditorium on the Mission Bay Campus.

Nominations for the 2006 prize were evaluated by three UCSF faculty members--Kevan Shokat, Anita Sil and Martin McMahon.