The Jacob’s Ladder Norman Saunders International Research Prize

In the year 2000 Jacob’s Ladder began an auspicious International Research Prize project. This prize, awarded to one outstanding researcher from around the world each year, has provided an opportunity for us to honour each of them for their accomplishments and also to afford them an opportunity to share their remarkable work with physicians and researchers in the fields of genetics and neurological diseases here in our own city.

From the very beginning the Hospital for Sick Children joined with us to create a panel to recommend and invite the world’s best to come to Toronto to accept this award. This project was unanimously well received from the onset and to date 15 outstanding candidates have attended. We again congratulate all previous award recipients who have shown outstanding dedication in the field of genetics:

Huda Zoghbi M.D. (2000) Baylor College, Houston, Texas Evan Snyder, M.D., Ph.D. (2001) Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, La Jolla, California Anthony Monaco M.D., Ph.D. (2002) University of Oxford, Oxford, England Gregory Grabowski Ph.D. (2003) Cincinnati Childrens’ Hospital, Cincinnati, Ohio Salvator DiMauro M.D. (2004) Columbia University, New York City, New York Hugo Moser M.D. (2005) John Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland Eric Shoubridge Ph.D. (2006) McGill University, Montreal, Quebec Charles R. Scriver CC GOQ FRSC FRS (2007) McGill University, Montreal, Quebec Stephen T. Warren Ph.D, FACMG (2008) Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia Charles Thornton Ph.D, MBA (2009) University of Maryland, Maryland Brian Robinson Ph.D. (2011) The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario Cornelius Jakobs Ph.D. (2013) VU Medical Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Berge Minassian M.D. (2014) University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario Adrian Bird CBE FRS, FRSE (2015) University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland Mustafa Sahin M.D. PhD (2017) Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Massachusetts

In March 2007 Dr. Norman Saunders, Jacob’s beloved paediatrician, passed away. To honour this incredible and incredibly important person in Jacob’s life the International Research Prize which he helped create was lovingly renamed The Jacob’s Ladder Norman Saunders International Research Prize.

On June 12th, 2019 we look forward to welcoming Fatima Bosch to speak at Grand Rounds at The Hospital for Sick Children. Fatima Bosch is a full Professor of Molecular Biology and Director of the Center of Animal Biotechnology and Gene Therapy at the Universitat Autònoma Barcelona. Professor Bosch is a Pharmacist (1980) and PhD in Biochemistry (1985) by the University of Barcelona and has conducted post-doctoral studies at Vanderbilt University (1985), Case Western Reserve University (1988-1990), and NCI-Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center (1991). She has been granted numerous awards for her accomplishments in her field during the course of her career and is also a member of the Gene Doping Expert Group of the World Anti-Doping Agency (2013-present).

Her research focuses on studying the pathophysiological causes of diabetes mellitus using transgenic animal models and developing gene therapy approaches to this disease by in vivo genetic manipulation of tissues using non-viral and viral vectors. Recently, she has applied her know-how on gene transfer technologies to the development of gene therapies for inherited metabolic disorders such as Muccopolysaccharidoses.