ESA News

ESA Newsletter: November 2001

Servier Award

Congratulations to Dr Karen Kroeger who is the winner of the 2001 Servier Award. The annual award recognises the best scientific paper as judged by a sub-committee of Council, published by an active Member of the Endocrine
Society of Australia, who is within 8 years of having obtained a higher degree.

Dr Kroeger is from the Western Australian Institute of Medical Research, University of Western Australia and the Keogh Institute of Medical Research.
She received the award for her paper entitled:

"Constitutive and agonist-dependent homo-oligomerization of the thyrotropin-releasing hormone receptor: Detection in living cells using bioluminescence resonance energy transfer"

co-authored by Aylin C Hanyaloglu, Ruth M Seeber, Lauren EC Miles and Karin A Eidne, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (276:12736-12743, 1999). The committee was unanimous in its opinion that Karen’s paper was an outstanding piece of work in a very good field.

The results take advantage of a new technique to describe the real-time kinetics of G-protein receptor interaction in living cells. This technique will have considerable power in advancing our understanding of protein-protein interactions, and is likely to prove a boon in the discovery of therapeutic targets. Karen presented her work, and received her award at the Annual Scientific Meeting on the Gold Coast.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Servier Award, which was an initiative of the Servier Company and the ESA Council under the presidency
of Jim Stockigt. In this time awardees have come from South Australia, Victoria,
New South Wales and Western Australia, covering a diverse range of endocrine topics from growth factors through neuroendocrinology to cell signalling. The papers have been published in the major specialist endocrinology journals
(both clinical and basic science journals) as well as more generalist biochemical journals.

The society believes that the Servier Award is now established as an important
part of its activities, and hopes to continue its association with the Servier Company and its young scientists in the future.

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