American biologist (b.1960)
Craig Cameron Mello
(born October 18, 1960) is an American biologist and professor of
molecular medicine
at the
University of Massachusetts Medical School
in
Worcester, Massachusetts
. He was awarded the 2006
Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine
, along with
Andrew Z. Fire
, for the discovery of
RNA interference
. This research was conducted at the
University of Massachusetts Medical School
and published in 1998. Mello has been a
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
investigator since 2000.
[1]
Early life
[
edit
]
Mello was born in
New Haven
,
Connecticut
on October 18, 1960.
[2]
He was the third child of James and Sally Mello. His father,
James Mello
, was a paleontologist and his mother, Sally Mello, was an artist.
[2]
His paternal grandparents immigrated to the US from the
Portuguese
islands of
Azores
. His parents met while attending
Brown University
and were the first children in their respective families to attend college. His grandparents on both sides withdrew from school as teenagers to work for their families.
[2]
James Mello completed his
Ph.D.
in
paleontology
from
Yale University
in 1962. The Mello family moved to
Falls Church
in northern
Virginia
so that James could take a position with the
United States Geological Survey
(USGS) in Washington, DC.
[2]
He was raised as
Roman Catholic
.
[2]
After a brief stay in
Falls Church
, the family moved to
Fairfax, Virginia
, when James Mello switched from the USGS to a position as assistant director at the
Smithsonian Museum of Natural History
.
[2]
Among Craig's fondest early memories were field trips with his father and the whole family to Colorado and Wyoming and more frequent trips to the Blue Ridge mountains in Virginia.
[2]
The Mello family had a very strong tradition of discussions around the dinner table and this experience was very important to young Mello. He learned to argue, to listen, and to admit it when he was wrong about something. At a time when young Mello was not performing so well in school, these daily discussions helped to build his confidence and self-esteem.
[2]
Mello struggled during the first few years of grade school. He started first grade at the age of five in a local private school because he was too young to enter first grade in the public system. He doesn't know if he was a slow learner, or just not interested, but he did not do well in school until the seventh grade. In second grade, Mello only pretended that he could read and he was embarrassed by being called on in class.
[2]
He much preferred playing outdoors, in the woods and creeks, to time spent in the classroom.
[2]
Meanwhile, his older siblings were model students, raising the teacher's expectations for him. During these early years, Mello had no doubt that he would be a
scientist
when he grew up. He is now the father of two daughters and a step-daughter and step-son.
[2]
Education
[
edit
]
Mello attended
Fairfax High School (Fairfax, Virginia)
.
[2]
After receiving his high school diploma, Mello attended
Brown University
as a biochemistry and molecular biology major.
Kenneth Miller
, his cell biology instructor, recounted that although he did not receive the "best grades of the class," he was intensely curious and thus a "real pain in the ass."
[3]
Mello would never let Miller finish a lecture without asking him for more references, questions, or evidence for concepts discussed in the lecture.
[3]
He received his
Bachelor of Science
from Brown in 1982.
[2]
Mello attended the
University of Colorado, Boulder
for graduate studies in molecular, cellular and developmental biology with David Hirsh. After Hirsh decided to take a position in industry, Mello moved to
Harvard University
where he could continue his research with Dan Stinchcomb.
[2]
Mello completed his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1990. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
in the laboratory of James Priess.
[2]
Nobel prize
[
edit
]
In 2006, Mello and Fire received the Nobel Prize for work that began in 1998, when Mello and Fire along with their colleagues (SiQun Xu, Mary Montgomery, Stephen Kostas, and Sam Driver) published a paper
[4]
in the journal
Nature
detailing how tiny snippets of
RNA
fool the cell into destroying the gene's messenger RNA (
mRNA
) before it can produce a protein - effectively shutting specific genes down.
In the annual
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Scientific Meeting held on November 13, 2006 in
Ashburn, Virginia
, Mello recounted the phone call that he received announcing that he had won the prize. He recalls that it was shortly after 4:30 am and he had just finished checking on his daughter, and returned to his bedroom. The phone rang (or rather the green light was blinking) and his wife told him not to answer, as it was a prank call. Upon questioning his wife, she revealed that it had rung while he was out of the room and someone was playing a bad joke on them by saying that he had won the Nobel prize. When he told her that they were actually announcing the Nobel prize winners on this very day, he said "her jaw dropped." He answered the phone, and the voice on the other end told him to get dressed, and that in half an hour his life was about to change.
The Nobel citation, issued by Sweden's
Karolinska Institute
, said: "This year's Nobel Laureates have discovered a fundamental mechanism for controlling the flow of genetic information."
Mello and Fire's research, conducted at the
Carnegie Institution for Science
(Fire) and the
University of Massachusetts Medical School
(Mello), had shown that in fact
RNA
plays a key role in gene regulation. According to Professor Nick Hastie, director of the
Medical Research Council
's Human Genetics Unit, said: "It is very unusual for a piece of work to completely revolutionize the whole way we think about biological processes and regulation, but this has opened up a whole new field in biology."
[5]
Philosophical outlook
[
edit
]
Mello admired and worked with
Stephen J. Gould
and has been inspired by his essays on natural history and the philosophy of science.
[2]
He believes that "The science vs. religion debate is over" and that it is possible to "unite rationality and spirituality in a
worldview
that celebrates the mysteries of existence and inspires each human being to achieve a higher purpose in life"
[6]
In his October 2015 acceptance speech for a China Friendship Award from Premier
Li Keqiang
Mello said,
[7]
Science is a unifier. Science values questions rather than beliefs. Science provides a path for humans to learn about their world, it helps us to create new knowledge and advance our cultures. There are so many forces that divide people; barriers of language, custom, ideology, and belief. Science counteracts these forces, it is a worldwide enterprise that unifies us and brings us together to solve problems and to understand our place in the world. Indeed, science tells us that we share a deep common history as a species, and that we will very likely share a common destiny as inhabitants of a small and fragile planet.
?
Craig Mello 2006 China Friendship Award
Involvement in RNAi biotechnology industry
[
edit
]
Mello is involved in several RNAi-based
biotechnology
companies. He is a co-founder of
RXi Pharmaceuticals
where he Chairs the Scientific Advisory Board. In June 2010, he joined the Technology Advisory Board of Beeologics, a company focused on development of RNAi products for honeybee health and various veterinary and agricultural applications, which, according to Mello, "could very well be the first
company to obtain FDA approval for an RNAi therapy".
[8]
In September 2011
Monsanto
acquired Beeologics.
Awards and honors
[
edit
]
(By chronological year of award
[9]
)
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Craig C. Mello, Ph.D."
Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Archived from
the original
on 2013-05-15
. Retrieved
2007-12-31
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m
n
o
p
"Autobiography of Craig Mello"
. The Nobel Foundation
. Retrieved
2007-12-31
.
- ^
a
b
TEDx Talks,
TEDxBrownUniversity - Kenneth Miller - What Makes the Brown University Curriculum Unique?
,
archived
from the original on 2021-12-19
, retrieved
2018-12-29
- ^
Fire, Andrew; Xu, SiQun; Montgomery, Mary K.; Kostas, Steven A.; Driver, Samuel E.; Mello, Craig C. (1998).
"Potent and specific genetic interference by double-stranded RNA in
Caenorhabditis elegans
"
.
Nature
.
391
(6669): 806?811.
Bibcode
:
1998Natur.391..806F
.
doi
:
10.1038/35888
.
PMID
9486653
.
S2CID
4355692
.
- ^
"Nobel prize for genetic discovery"
.
BBC
. 2006-10-02
. Retrieved
2006-10-02
.
- ^
Commending
Thank God for Evolution
p i
- ^
Horton, Richard (10 October 2015). "The underrated value of friendship".
The Lancet
.
386
(10002): 1432.
doi
:
10.1016/S0140-6736(15)00419-5
.
S2CID
54350254
.
- ^
"Beeologics Welcomes Nobel Prize Winner, Craig C... | MyPRGenie"
. Archived from
the original
on 2010-06-27
. Retrieved
2010-06-10
.
- ^
"UMASS MEDICAL SCHOOL PROFESSOR WINS NOBEL PRIZE"
.
University of Massachusetts Medical School
. 2006-10-02. Archived from
the original
on 2006-12-06
. Retrieved
2006-10-02
.
- ^
"Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement"
.
www.achievement.org
.
American Academy of Achievement
.
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
1901?1925
| |
---|
1926?1950
| |
---|
1951?1975
| |
---|
1976?2000
| |
---|
2001?present
| |
---|