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The inaugural was awarded to of the University of Colorado Boulder in a ceremony and symposium at the ӳ����ý on September 21, 2023. The prize, created by the Merkin Family Foundation and administered by the ӳ����ý, recognizes novel technologies that have significantly improved human health and carries a $400,000 award.  

Nominations for the opened on September 6, 2023 and close on December 6, 2023 at 11:59 pm ET. 

Caruthers was announced as the winner in June for his development, in 1981, of an efficient, automated technology for synthesizing DNA. Caruthers’ innovation of chemical reactions that quickly assemble nucleotides into strands of DNA became an indispensable element of modern molecular medicine. Today, scientists use such reactions to produce the customizable DNA and RNA molecules that enable genetic sequencing, drug and vaccine development, pathogen tests, cancer diagnostics, and more. 

Caruthers recalled how, at a conference in 1975, he was openly questioned for working on the idea of synthesizing DNA. “One individual who is now a member of the US National Academy of Sciences said, ‘Marv, why in the world are you wondering how to synthesize DNA? You’re a bright guy, why don’t you find something else to do?’ But because of my [chemistry] background, I knew there was an enormous need for synthetic DNA in a large number of applications.”  

As a postdoc at the University of Wisconsin from 1968 to 1970, Caruthers worked in the lab of , who won the Nobel Prize in 1968 with Marshall Nirenberg and Robert Holley for research that interpreted the genetic code. Caruthers credited Khorana for inspiring him to pursue his work on DNA synthesis, despite the fact that there were many doubters at the time: “Gobind had the philosophy that if you want to break new ground in research, you have to walk the path alone. That was his philosophy, and he pounded that into me more than once.” 

praised Caruthers for the scope and impact of his prizewinning research. “The biotech industry would not be what it is today if it weren’t for Marv,” he said. “The ӳ����ý would not be what it is, or maybe even exist, if it weren’t for Marv. His work demonstrates the type of technology used in the life sciences that impacts patients’ care. And for all of you young people in the audience, I’d like to make this prize shine a light on innovation — and on making sure that you do not embrace the status quo.”  

Nobel laureate Harold E. Varmus, the Lewis Thomas University Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine and chair of the Merkin Prize selection committee, applauded the prize’s emphasis on technologies that have made a significant impact on biomedicine. “There are a lot of prizes in biomedical science, but very few of them are focused on technology,” he said. “Yet we all know as scientists that it’s technology that drives discovery. In this case the prize is designed to honor not just technologies that are exciting in the laboratory but technologies that have had an impact on public health and clinical care.” 

Todd Golub, director and founding core institute member of the ӳ����ý, thanked Merkin, whose philanthropic partnership with the ӳ����ý has spanned more than 15 years. “Like Eli ӳ����ý, Merkin is one of those rare philanthropists who is not only generous, but also sees the value in being patient and investing in technologies and fundamental science that someday will pay off and benefit humanity,” Golub said. “He’s been one of our most important partners, making much of what we do here at the ӳ����ý possible.”  

Merkin’s partnership with the ӳ����ý includes programs like the Merkin Institute Fellows, established in 2012 as the ӳ����ý’s first endowed fellowship; the Merkin Institute for Transformative Technologies in Healthcare, launched in 2017 to support paradigm-shifting projects from researchers at the ӳ����ý, Harvard, MIT, and the Harvard-affiliated hospitals; the Richard Merkin Professorship (also established in 2017), an endowed professorship held by David Liu, who leads the Merkin Institute for Transformative Technologies in Healthcare; and a generous new commitment in 2021 that advanced the aforementioned programs and launched the Merkin Prize. It was also in 2021 that, in recognition of Merkin’s partnership, the ӳ����ý named its building at 415 Main Street the Richard N. Merkin Building. 

The symposium portion of the program began with a talk by , Nobel laureate and Caruthers’ longtime colleague at the University of Colorado Boulder. Cech praised Caruthers’ humility and cited two more applications of Caruthers’ prizewinning invention: its use in forensics and in tools that allow us to trace our ancestries. Cech also described his own recent research, published in , in which he and colleagues used an epigenetic gene-silencing complex essential for cell differentiation and often deregulated in cancers to demonstrate that RNA, in addition to serving as a messenger, regulates the process of transcription itself. 

The next symposium speaker was Laura Kiessling, institute member at the ӳ����ý and Novartis professor of chemistry at MIT. Kiessling lauded Caruthers’ use of fundamental chemistry. “As someone who grew up as a synthetic chemist making complex molecules, I was really inspired by his work, because it shows the power of chemistry in studying problems of biomedical interest,” she said. For her talk, Kiessling outlined a method called Lectin-Seq, reported in , that she and colleagues developed to elucidate the role of human lectins — soluble carbohydrate-binding proteins — in regulating microbiota. 

Xiao Wang, an institute member at the ӳ����ý and a Merkin Institute Fellow in 2022, gave the third symposium talk, describing her lab’s work on next-generation mRNA therapeutics. As reported last year in , Wang’s lab developed a way to construct messenger-oligonucleotide conjugated RNAs with chemically modified tails, a strategy that reduced RNA degradation while increasing therapeutic protein expression in cells. Wang concluded her presentation by expressing gratitude to Merkin. “I’m really thankful for the support of the Merkin Fellowship,” she said. “It is because we had the Fellowship that we could buy our very first DNA and RNA synthesizer in the lab.” 

The final symposium speaker was Caruthers himself, who discussed his latest research using thiomorpholino oligonucleotides (TMOs) to induce exon skipping in a Duchenne muscular dystrophy in vitro model. As reported last year in , Caruthers and colleagues showed that their TMOs induce excellent exon skipping potency compared with controls. Their TMOs also performed well at low concentrations, meaning dosages can be minimized — important for their prospective development as therapeutics.

For further information on how to nominate for the 2024 Merkin Prize, please visit the . Eligibility extends to all investigators who have developed relevant health innovations, regardless of their place of employment, including academia, the commercial sector, or government. Both teams and individuals who have made a profound impact on medicine by pioneering a transformative technology are eligible.

About the Merkin Family Foundation
The Merkin Family Foundation was founded by visionary health care executive Richard Merkin, MD.

Richard Merkin, MD is the founder and CEO of Heritage Provider Network, Inc. (HPN). HPN is one of the largest physician founded and physician owned managed care organizations in the country dedicated to value-based healthcare delivery improvements. HPN develops and manages coordinated, patient-doctor centric, integrated health care systems that offer some of the strongest solutions for the future of health, care, and cost in the United States. HPN and its affiliates operate in New York, California, and Arizona, providing high-quality, cost-effective healthcare with over one million patient members. HPN is dedicated to quality, affordable health care, and putting patients’ wellness first.
 
About ӳ����ý of MIT and Harvard
ӳ����ý was launched in 2004 to empower this generation of scientists to transform medicine. The ӳ����ý seeks to describe the molecular components of life and their connections; discover the molecular basis of major human diseases; develop approaches to diagnostics and therapeutics; and disseminate discoveries, tools, methods, and data to the entire scientific community.

Founded by MIT, Harvard, Harvard-affiliated hospitals, and the visionary Los Angeles philanthropists Eli and Edythe L. ӳ����ý, the ӳ����ý includes faculty, professional staff, and students from throughout the MIT and Harvard biomedical research communities and beyond, with collaborations spanning over 100 private and public institutions in more than 40 countries worldwide.