Nancy Bonini and Shelley Berger are Elected to the Institute of Medicine

Nancy Bonini is the Florence R.C. Murray Professor of Biology in the Department of Biology. Bonini’s research uses fruit flies to define genes and identify suppressor mutations that can prevent or delay brain degeneration. She is expanding into neural inquiry and aging models in fruit flies by analyzing the nervous system with age in hopes of providing further insights into neural decline.

Her work has garnered several awards, including the Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar Award in Aging Research and the National Institute of Health’s Exceptional, Unconventional Research Enabling Knowledge Acceleration award in 2009. Bonini was a David and Lucile Packard fellow in 1997 and also won a John Merck Scholars Award in the Biology of Developmental Disabilities in Children in 1995. She has authored dozens of articles for various academic publications.

Daniel S. Och University Professor Shelley Berger’s research focuses on cell and developmental biology. Her work examines the regulation of the nuclear genome in mammals and model organisms, and is revolutionizing the understanding of genetic information.

She was named the University’s 10th Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor (PIK) in 2009 and has a joint appointment in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology and the Department of Biology. In 2010, Berger also received the Ellison Medical Foundation’s Senior Scholar in Aging Award.

Election to the Institute of Medicine is one of the nation's highest honors in biomedicine.