It was with great pleasure that we learned University of Washington alumnus Jeffrey C. Hall has been awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with two of his colleagues, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young. They received the award for their groundbreaking work on “clock genes,” the genetic mechanisms that control circadian systems. Their work helped to explain, in the words of the Nobel committee, “how plants, animals and humans adapt their biological rhythm so that it is synchronized with the Earth’s revolutions.”
Hall earned his Ph.D. in genetics from the UW in 1971 where his mentors included then-department chair Herschel Roman and the genetics pioneer, Professor Larry Sandler. At the time, the Department of Genetics was part of the College of Arts and Sciences, later becoming Genome Sciences in the School of Medicine.
The UW is honored to count Hall among our alumni and we congratulate him and Drs. Rosbash and Young on their extraordinary contributions to advancing the world’s scientific knowledge. You can read more about their prize-winning discoveries on the UW News blog.