UA Biology Student Wins National Award — Second Year in a Row

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Iyare Izevbaye of Nigeria, a second year doctoral student at The University of Alabama, was recently awarded The Worthington Award from the American Society of Cell Biology. This honor is given to the top six students selected from a pool of thousands by some of the world’s top cell biologists.

The Worthington Award is meant to recognize promising research in the field of cell biology. UA is the only university to have repeat winners of the award; Shelli Williams of Robertsdale was one of last year’s winners for her work in the lab of Drs. Guy and Kim Caldwell. “The fact that two of our students have won this honor, two years in a row, for completely separate research projects, points to the excellence of their work and the training they are receiving here at UA.  We are very proud of the recognition they have brought to The University of Alabama,” Caldwell said.

Izevbaye has also been working in the Caldwells’ lab, researching the molecular mechanisms underlying Parkinson’s disease. That research is funded by a grant that Caldwell received from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research; it is one of only 13 such grants awarded worldwide.

“Iyare, who is already a medical doctor from Nigeria, is an intellectually mature student, who demonstrates a high level of integrative ability, rapidly discerning the root cause of a given scientific problem and quickly developing potential ways to attack something experimentally,” said Caldwell. “His sense of perseverance toward attaining his research goals will serve him well as his work progresses.”

According to Izevbaye, he plans to complete a postdoctoral-research residency in pathology and then begin a scientific career investigating the mechanisms of human diseases. “Innovative research into interesting biological questions is being done here and I am glad that UA gave me this opportunity,” he said.