Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize Lecture
From left, interim University President Katrina Armtrong, Rodney Rothstein, PhD, and 2024 Horwitz Prize winners Scott Emr, PhD, and Wesley Sundquist, PhD, February 2025. (Photo/A. Krusberg)
The Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize was established under the will of the late S. Gross Horwitz through a bequest to Columbia University and is named in honor of the donor's mother. Louisa Gross Horwitz was the daughter of prominent Philadelphia surgeon Samuel David Gross (1805–1889), who wrote the outstanding two volume work Systems of Surgery and served as president of the American Medical Association.
Each year since its inception in 1967, the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize has been awarded by Columbia University for outstanding basic research in the fields of biology or biochemistry. The purpose of this award is to honor a scientific investigator or group of investigators whose contributions to knowledge in either of these fields are deemed worthy of special recognition.
Related Information
Past Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize Lecturers
2023
Glen Barber, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
Zhijian 'James' Chen, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
2022
Karl Deisseroth, Stanford University
Peter Hegemann, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
Gero Miesenböck, University of Oxford, UK
2021
Katalin Karikó, BioNTech SE; University of Pennsylvania
Drew Weissman, University of Pennsylvania
2020
Robert Fettiplace, University of Wisconsin-Madison
A. James Hudspeth, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; The Rockefeller University
Christine Petit, Collège de France; Institut Pasteur, France
2019
Lewis C. Cantley, Weill Cornell Medicine
David M. Sabatini, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Peter K. Vogt, Scripps Research
2018
Bert W. O’Malley, Baylor College of Medicine
Ronald M. Evans, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Pierre Chambon, Institute for Advanced Study of the University of Strasbourg, France; Institut de Génétique et de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire, France
2017
Jeffrey I. Gordon, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
2016
Howard Cedar, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Gary Felsenfeld, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases
Aharon Razin, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
2015
Lawrence Zipursky, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; University of California, Los Angeles
2014
James P. Allison, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
2013
John Michael O'Keffe, University College London, England
Edvard I. Moser II, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
May-Britt Moser, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
2012
Richard Losick, Harvard University
Joe Lutkenhaus, University of Kansas Medical School
Lucy Shapiro, Stanford University School of Medicine
2011
Jeffery C. Hall, Brandeis University
Michael Rosbash, Brandeis University
Michael W. Young, The Rockefeller University
2010
Thomas J. Kelly, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Bruce Stillman, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
2009
Victor R. Ambrose, University of Massachusetts Medical School
Gary Ruvkun, Harvard Medical School
2008
F. Ulrich Hartl, Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry Martinsried, Germany
Arthur Horwich, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Yale University School of Medicine
2007
Elizabeth H. Blackburn, University of California, San Francisco
Joseph G. Gall, Carnegie Institution of Washington
Carol W. Greider, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
2006
Roger D. Kornberg, Stanford University School of Medicine
2005
Ada Yonath, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel
2004
Tony Hunter, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Anthony Pawson, University of Toronto, Canada
2003
Roderick MacKinnon, The Rockefeller University
2002
James E. Rothman, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Randy W. Schekman, University of California, Berkeley
2001
Avram Hershko, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
Alexander Varshavsky, California Institute of Technology
2000
H. Robert Horvitz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stanley J. Korsmeyer, Harvard Medical School
1999
Pierre Chambon, Institute Génétique et de Biologie Moleculaire et Cellulaire, Université L. Pasteur, France; Collége de France, Paris
Robert Roeder, The Rockefeller University
Robert Tijan, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; University of California, Berkeley
1998
Arnold J. Levine, The Rockefeller University
Bert Vogelstein, Johns Hopkins University
1997
Stanley B. Prusiner, University of California, San Francisco
1996
Clay M. Armstrong, University of Pennsylvania
Bertil Hille, University of Washington
1995
Leland H. Hartwell, University of Washington
1994
Philippa Marrack, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center
John W. Kappler, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center
1993
Nicole Le Douarin, Institut d'Embryologie Cellulaire et Moléculaire, France
Donald Metcalf, The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medicine, Australia
1992
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, Max-Planck-Institut für Biologie Tübingen, Germany
Edward B. Lewis, California Institute of Technology
1991
Richard Ernst, Laboratorium für Physikalische Chemie, Switzerland
Kurt Wuthrich, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland; Institut für Molekularbiologie und Biophysik, Switzerland
1990
Stephen Harrison, Harvard University; Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Michael G. Rossmann, Purdue University
Don C. Wiley, Harvard University; Howard Hughes Medical Institute
1989
Alfred G. Gilman, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Edwin G. Krebs, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; University of Washington
1988
Thomas R. Cech, University of Colorado Boulder
Philip A. Sharp, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1987
Günter Blobel, The Rockefeller University
1986
Erwin Neher, Max-Planck-Institut für Biophysikalische Chemie, Germany
Bert Sakmann, Max-Planck-Institut für Biophysikalische Chemie, Germany
1985
Donald D. Brown, Carnegie Institution of Washington
Mark Ptashne, Harvard University
1984
Michael S. Brown, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Joseph Goldstein, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
1983
Stanley Cohen, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
Vitkor Hamburger, Washington University in St. Louis
Rita Levi-Montalcini, Instituto di Biologia Cellulare, Italy
1982
Barbara McClintock, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Susumu Tonegawa, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1981
Aaron Klug, Medical Research Council, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, England
1980
Cesar Milstein, Medical Research Council, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, England
1979
Walter Gilbert, Harvard University
Frederick Sanger, Medical Research Council of Molecular Biology, England
1978
David Hubel, Harvard Medical School
Vernon Mountcastle, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Torsten Wiesel, The Rockefeller University
1977
Michael Heidelberger, New York University School of Medicine
Elvin A. Kabat, Columbia University
Henry G. Kunkel, Columbia University
1976
Seymour Benzer, California Institute of Technology
Charles Yanofsky, Stanford University
1975
K. Sune D. Bergstrom, Nobel Foundation, Sweden
Bengt Samuelsson, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden
1974
Boris Ephrussi, Université de Paris, France
1973
Renato Dulbecco, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Harry Eagle, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Theodore T. Puck, University of Colorado Medical Center
1972
Stephen W. Kuffler, Harvard Medical School
1971
Hugh E. Huxley, Medical Research Council, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, England
1970
Albert Claude, L'Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium
George E. Palade, Yale University School of Medicine
Keith R. Porter, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
1969
Max Delbrück, California Institute of Technology
Salvador E. Luria, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1968
H. Gobind Khorana, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Marshall Warren Nirenberg, National Heart, Lung & Blood Institute
1967
Luis F. Leloir, Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquimicas de Buenos Aires, Argentina