Biology’s Bonini Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Nancy Bonini, Florence R.C. Murray Professor of Biology, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation's most prestigious honorary societies and a leading center for independent policy research. The American Academy describes the 204 individuals in its 2014 class of members as prominent men and women in the sciences, the humanities, and the arts, as well as philanthropists and business leaders.

Bonini’s research focuses on molecular genetic approaches to neurodegenerative disease, using fruit flies to define genes that factor into human brain disease. Through these studies, her work will identify suppressor mutations that can prevent or delay brain degeneration—research that can be applied to conditions like Parkinson’s disease and motor neuron diseases.

Bonini was awarded a five-year David and Lucile Packard Fellowship grant in 1998, and has been an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 2000. In 2009, she was the recipient of an Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar Award in Aging Research and the winner of an Exceptional, Unconventional Research Enabling Knowledge Acceleration (EUREKA) grant awarded by the National Institutes of Health. In 2012 she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and to the Institute of Medicine.

In addition to her appointment in Biology, Bonini holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Neuroscience in the Perelman School of Medicine.