April - May 2004

Diaz Receives Presidential Early Career Award

Marilyn Diaz, principal investigator in the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, received the 2002 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. The awards are given by the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President. Recipients were honored in a ceremony May 4. Diaz is one of 57 people selected for the award, given to the most promising beginning researchers in the nation within their fields.

Diaz was cited "for innovative research in the mutational component of antibody diversity in the study of resistance to infectious diseases, cancer and susceptibility to autoimmune disease". Diaz utilizes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of immunology, combining areas such as evolutionary theory, DNA repair and mutation, and cellular immunology.