Andrew Zachary Fire received a B.A. in Mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1978 and a Ph.D. in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983. He became a staff member of the Carnegie Institute of Washington’s Department of Embryology in Baltimore in 1986, where he began work on double-stranded RNA as a gene silencer. He was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, along with Craig C. Mello, for the discovery of RNA interference (RNAi), a mechanism in which genes are silenced by double-stranded RNA. Possible applications of RNAi include developing treatments for such diseases as AIDS, cancer, and hepatitis. Dr. Fire joined the faculty as a Professor of Pathology and Genetics at the Stanford University School of Medicine in 2003. His current research interests include the mechanisms by which cells and organisms respond to genetic change. These include mechanisms activated during normal development and systems for detecting and responding to foreign genetic activity. Much of the current effort in his lab at Stanford University is directed toward a molecular understanding of the RNAi machinery and its roles in the cell. Throughout his career, all of the major work in Dr. Fire’s labs has been supported by research grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and serves on the Board of Scientific Counselors and the National Center for Biotechnology, National Institutes of Health.

     Douglas A. Lauffenburger is an Uncas & Helen Whitaker Professor of Bioengineering and Head of the Department of Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and also hold appointments in the Departments of Biology and Chemical Engineering. He is a member of the Biotechnology Process Engineering Center, the Center for Biomedical Engineering, the Center for Cancer Research, and the Center for Environmental Health Sciences. He also serves on the Steering Committee of the Computational & Systems Biology Initiative.
     Dr. Lauffenburger has served as a consultant or scientific advisory board member for the Burroughs-Wellcome Fund, the Whitaker Foundation, and many biomedical companies. A few of his awards include the Pierre Galletti Award, the W.H. Walker Award, and the Distinguished Lecture Award from BMES. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and has served as President of the Biomedical Engineering Society. Dr. Lauffenburger's major research interests are in cell engineering: the fusion of engineering with molecular cell biology. A central focus of his research program is in receptor-mediated cell communication and intracellular signal transduction, with emphasis on development of predictive computational models derived from quantitative experimental studies, for cell cue/signal/response relationships important in pathophysiology with application to drug discovery and development.

     In 1949, Earl Bakken co-founded Medtronic, one of the world's leading developers and manufacturers of therapeutic medical devices, as a partnership with the late Palmer J. Hermundslie. Bakken was Medtronic's chief executive officer and chairman of the board from the company's incorporation in 1957 until 1976. He was senior chairman of the board through 1989 and retired from the board in August 1994. Bakken remains actively involved in Medtronic company relationships. After earning a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering in 1948, he studied electrical engineering with a minor in mathematics at the University of Minnesota Graduate School. Bakken developed the first wearable, external, battery-powered, transistorized pacemaker in 1957 for Dr. C. Walton Lillehei, a University of Minnesota heart surgeon. In 1975, Bakken founded The Bakken, a nonprofit library museum and educational center devoted to the history of electricity and magnetism and their use in medicine and life sciences. Earl Bakken has received a number of awards and honorary doctor's degrees, in recognition of his pioneering contribution to implantable cardiac pacemaker and therapeutic medical devices. Dr. Bakken received IEEE Eli Lilly Award in Medical and Biological Engineering in 1994 for pioneering development and commercialization of implantable cardiac pacemakers, and shared the National Academy of Engineering's 2001 Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize, with Wilson Greatbatch, for their independent development of the implantable cardiac pacemaker.