Yale’s Pollard honored for scientific reviews of cell motility research

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has named Dr. Thomas Pollard, Sterling Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale, the recipient of the 2015 NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing.

The science council of the NAS gives the award to those who have “synthesized extensive and difficult materials, rendering a significant service to science and influencing the course of scientific thought.”

Pollard is one of the pioneers in the field of cell movement and for four decades has studied the molecular basis of cellular motility. He has written many reviews, cited thousands of times, that track advances in the field.

Pollards has “published reviews tracing the history of cell motility from its beginnings, critically analyzing the biochemical reactions responsible for cellular movements, critiquing the methods and assumptions used in the field, and synthesizing the information available into creative models that have guided the development of the field,’ the citation letter reads.

Pollard will receive the award, which carries a $20,000 prize, at the NAS annual meeting in Washington, D.C. on April 26.