2006 William Procter Prize for Scientific Achievement
Susan Lindquist is a professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1976, going to the University of Chicago as an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow before joining the faculty there in 1977. Lindquist served as director of MIT's Whitehead Institute from 2001-2004. She is well known for her work on proteins in yeast and fruit flies, research that provided the evidence for a new form of genetics based upon the inheritance of proteins with new, self-perpetuating shapes. This work provided a framework for understanding diseases such as Alzheimer's and mad cow, which are marked by plaque in the brain caused by the misfolding of proteins. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow in American Academy of Microbiology. Colleagues and students say she is a dynamic, passionate speaker who can explain complicated concepts with ease.