Durham, NC - Dr Robert L Lefkowitz, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Duke University Medical Center, has been awarded the National Medal of Science. He will receive the medal, the highest honor for science in the US, from President Bush at a ceremony on September 29, 2008 at the White House.

Lefkowitz, who has been at Duke for 35 years, is receiving the award for his work on G-protein-coupled receptors and related signaling pathways. These receptors are the targets of almost half of the drugs on the market today, including beta blockers and antihistamines. Lefkowitz and his team first identified and cloned the genes for these receptors during the 1970s and 1980s, fundamentally altering the way in which numerous therapeutic agents were subsequently developed.

"The National Medal of Science is a great personal and professional honor that reflects my entire career in the life sciences," says Lefkowitz, professor of biochemistry, immunology, and medicine and also a basic research cardiologist at the Duke Heart Center.

"One of the most rewarding aspects of my career at Duke has been the opportunity to mentor more than 200 very talented students and fellows. Many of them have gone on to distinguished careers in academia and the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. This award honors them as much as it does me. I really can't imagine a more fulfilling career for me than to have been a professor of medicine and a scientist. I am as excited about the opportunities and challenges of our work at present as I have ever been," he notes in a university statement.