Chevy Chase, MD, June 14, 2008 - The Endocrine Society announces that Tannishtha Reya, Ph.D., is the 2008 recipient of its Richard E. Weitzman Memorial Award. This award is presented annually to recognize an exceptionally promising young clinical or basic investigator. The award is based on the contributions and achievements of the nominee's own independent scholarship performed after completion of formal training, and is based on the entire body of these contributions, rather than a single work. The award will be presented to Dr. Reya at ENDO 08, The Endocrine Society’s 90th Annual Meeting, which takes place from June 15-18, 2008, in San Francisco, California.

At an early stage in her career, Dr. Reya has already made significant progress in her quest to understand how stem cells are controlled by extrinsic and intrinsic signaling pathways. An independent investigator at Duke University for seven years, she has made compelling contributions towards understanding how signaling cascades regulate stem cell self-renewal and commitment, and how the same signals become subverted to fuel cancer growth. Furthermore, her insight into how hormones and growth factors control the asymmetric division of stem cells has important implications for both basic science and medicine.

Dr. Reya has published reports of her work in such scientific journals as Nature (2003), Nature Immunology (2005), Cancer Cell (2007), and Cell Stem Cell (2007). Her research has provided insight into the signals that regulate Hematopoietic Stem Cell (HSC) growth and differentiation. Recently, her work using live imaging to define whether an HSC will divide symmetrically or asymmetrically has shown that the balance between symmetric and asymmetric division can be influenced by the normal environment and disrupted by oncogenes to drive cancer growth. Overall, Dr. Tannishtha Reya’s work has shown that oncogenes can subvert normal mechanisms of asymmetric division and can become dependant on normal developmental pathways such as Wnt signaling. She is a continual contributor to the scholarship of endocrinology, and an ideal candidate for the 2008 Richard E. Weitzman Award.

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Founded in 1916, The Endocrine Society is the world's oldest, largest, and most active organization devoted to research on hormones and the clinical practice of endocrinology. Today, The Endocrine Society's membership consists of over 14,000 scientists, physicians, educators, nurses and students in more than 80 countries. Together, these members represent all basic, applied, and clinical interests in endocrinology. The Endocrine Society is based in Chevy Chase, Md. To learn more about the Society, and the field of endocrinology, visit our web site at www.endo-society.org.