Chevy Chase, MD, June 14, 2008-The Endocrine Society is pleased to announce that Nancy L. Weigel, Ph.D., is recipient of the 2008 Roy O. Greep Award Lecture. This award is presented annually for outstanding contributions to research in endocrinology. The award will be presented to Dr. Weigel at ENDO 08, the 90th Annual Meeting of The Endocrine Society, which will take place from June 15-18, 2008, in San Francisco, California.

Dr. Weigel’s work has focused primarily on the role of cell signaling in steroid receptor action and the activities of nuclear hormone receptors in prostate cancer. She is known widely as a critical and pioneering scientist in the area of hormone action. She was the first to identify phosphorylation sites on a steroid receptor. She participated in the very first demonstration of hormone independent activation of steroid receptors and also proved this activation to be independent of changes in progesterone receptor phosphorylation. These findings later showed great clinical importance in endocrine cancers, when they led her to prove that prostate cancer cells require androgen receptors for growth in the absence of normal levels of androgens. She was also the first to show that a synthetic analog of the active metabolite of vitamin D could inhibit the growth of prostate tumors in mice without adverse side effects.

Aside from her groundbreaking discoveries and commendable scientific contributions, Dr. Weigel has chaired review panels, organized national and international meetings, and served as on several journal editorial boards for The Endocrine Society. She is a Searle scholar and a distinguished teacher who won the Marc Dresden Award for teaching. She is also a member of Women in Endocrinology. As an esteemed Professor at Baylor College of Medicine, Dr. Nancy Weigel represents an exemplary prototype for the 2008 Roy O. Greep Award Lecture.

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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.