CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Phillip A. Newmark, a researcher in the department of cell and structural biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is one of five recipients nationwide of a 2003 Damon Runyon Scholar Award.
The three-year $300,000 award from the New York-based Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation supports the development of outstanding scientists as they establish their own independent research laboratories. The grant period begins Jan. 1.
The award is designed to boost Newmark's efforts to identify the genes involved in the tissue regenerative abilities of planarian flatworms in their recovery from wounds. The work involves intensive biological study of flatworm stem-cell activity.
Newmark, who joined the Illinois faculty in August 2001, earned a bachelor's degree in biology from Boston University and a doctorate in molecular, cellular and developmental biology from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Barcelona and the Carnegie Institution of Washington before coming to Illinois.