TIGR's Fraser, Salzberg Honored As AAAS Fellows

TIGR President Claire M. Fraser and Senior Bioinformatics Director Steven L. Salzberg have been named as Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in recognition of their contributions to genomics and bioinformatics.

October 28, 2004

Rockville, MD — TIGR President Claire M. Fraser and Senior Bioinformatics Director Steven L. Salzberg have been named as Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

AAAS Fellows are chosen by scientific peers in recognition of their distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. This year's AAAS Fellows were to be announced in the October 29th issue of Science.

Fraser, who co-founded TIGR in 1992 and has been the Institute's president since 1998, was honored for "her pioneering efforts in the field of genomics, particularly in the sequencing and analysis of microbial genomes."

Salzberg, who joined TIGR in 1997, was honored for "fundamental new algorithms in bioinformatics, particularly for prokaryotic gene finding algorithms, and for novel contributions to the analysis of multiple prokaryotic and eukaryotic genomes."

Fraser led the TIGR teams that sequenced the genomes of Mycoplasma genitalium, the spirochetes Treponema pallidum and Borrelia burgdorfei, Bacillus anthracis, and two species of Chlamydia. During her career, Fraser has published more than 200 articles in scientific journals and books. Before becoming TIGR's president, Fraser was the institute's vice president of research and director of its microbial genomics department.

Prior to that, Fraser worked as a researcher at the National Institutes of Health, including three years as Chief of the Section of Molecular Neurobiology at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. She has been a member of several National Research Council committees and has served on review panels of the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health. She is also a Professor in the Departments of Pharmacology, Microbiology and Tropical Medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine.

Salzberg and his bioinformatics research team at TIGR developed one of the leading gene finding programs, Glimmer, which has been used in the analysis of many bacterial and viral genomes. He was a key contributor to the analysis of several landmark genome sequences, including multiple bacteria sequenced at TIGR, the eukaryotic parasite Plasmodium falciparum, the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, and the human genome. Salzberg has published more than 125 articles in scientific journals and books. Prior to joining TIGR, he was an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at Johns Hopkins University, where he currently maintains an appointment as Research Professor of Computer Science.

AAAS members can be considered for the rank of Fellow if nominated by the Steering Groups of the Association's 24 sections, or by any three Fellows who are current AAAS members (so long as two of the three sponsors are not affiliated with the nominee's institution), or by the Chief Executive Officer. Each Steering Group then reviews the nominations of individuals within its respective section and a final list is forwarded to the AAAS Council, which votes on the aggregate list.

The Council is the policymaking body of the Association, chaired by the AAAS President, and consisting of the members of the Board of Directors, the Retiring Section Chairs, delegates from each electorate and each regional division, and two delegates from the National Association of Academies of Science.