8 January 2007
Professor Evan Simpson, Director of Prince Henry's Institute at Clayton's Monash Medical Centre, has been awarded the prestigious 2006 Komen Foundation Brinker Award for Scientific Distinction.
The award is the highest accolade given by the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, the world's largest private source of funding for breast cancer research, and recognises leading scientists whose work has significantly advanced breast cancer research, treatment or screening.
Professor Simpson is a world leader in the field of oestrogen biosynthesis (production). His work over the last 25 years has identified the role that oestrogen plays in the development of breast cancer, the maintenance of bone mineralisation in both men and women, and brain function.
Professor Simpson's lab was the first to clone the human gene encoding aromatase, the enzyme responsible for oestrogen production. His work demonstrating that aromatase in breast tumours is regulated by different mechanisms than those found in the surrounding normal breast tissue is leading to unique approaches for breast cancer therapy.
Professor Simpson was presented with the honour at the Komen Foundation's Brinker Dinner held during the 29th Annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in December in San Antonio, USA.
"It is a great honour to receive this award and a privilege to the join the ranks of the distinguished past recipients," Professor Simpson said.
Past recipients of the Komen Brinker Award for Scientific Distinction include Leland Hartwell, PhD, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize for medicine or physiology, and Dr Larry Norton, whose dose-density approach to the administration of chemotherapy has revolutionised breast cancer treatment.
Prince Henry's Institute (PHI) is world renowned for its research into reproduction and endocrinology, the study of hormones. For nearly forty years, the Institute has maintained a reputation for excellence through its first class, internationally competitive research and clinical programs.
Established in 1969 as the Medical Research Centre at Prince Henry's Hospital in South Melbourne, PHI is now an independent institute based at Monash Medical Centre in Clayton. | 
