Bijvoet Medals awarded to Carolyn Bertozzi and Vishva Dixit
On September 30, 2022, the Bijvoet Centre for Biomolecular Research awarded Bijvoet Medals to Carolyn Bertozzi and Vishva Dixit on the occasion of their Heineken Prize Lectures in the Educatorium on the Utrecht Science Park.
Carolyn Bertozzi studied chemistry at Harvard University in the United States. She received her Ph.D., also in chemistry, from the University of California (UC) Berkeley in 1993. In 1996, she joined the UC Berkeley chemistry faculty and in 2002 she was appointed Full Professor in Chemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology. In 2015, Bertozzi moved from UC Berkeley to Stanford University and became professor of Chemistry and Chemical & Systems Biology. Her scientic work forms the basis of more than 400 publications and 50 patents and she is co-founder of several biotech companies, where her research has been translated to medical applications. She received the 2022 Dr H.P. Heineken Prize for Biochemistry and Biophysics and as awarded the Bijvoet Medal for her contributions to "chemical tools to study the glycobiology underlying cell surface interactions in human health and disease".
Vishva Dixit studied medicine at the University of Nairobi in Kenya. In 1981, he moved to the United States for a medical residency training programme at Washington University in St. Louis. In 1986, he joined as an Assistant Professor the Pathology Department at the University of Michigan, where he was appointed full Professor in 1995. Beginning in 1997, he held various positions at the biotech company Genentech and he has been vice president of Early Discovery Research since 2005. Between 1999 and 2008, he was also a professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California. He received the 2022 Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Medicine, and was awarded the Bijvoet Medal for his contributions to "unraveling the molecular aspects of disease-related cellular signaling with the aim to develop novel therapeutics".