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Our congratulations to F1000 Section Head Tony Hunter, who has been awarded the 2014 Royal Medal for biological sciences by the Royal Society.

Tony Hunter is director of Salk’s NCI-designated Cancer Center and has been on the F1000 Faculty since its conception in 2001*. He is also a fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

The award recognizes Tony’s important contributions to the understanding of the chemical signaling that tells cells when to multiply. In 1979, his lab uncovered a new mechanism of protein regulation in cells: the addition of a phosphate group to the amino acid tyrosine in proteins affects how cells multiply. This discovery of a ‘master switch’ for growth signaling opened the door to the study of tyrosine kinases and their important role in cancer. This eventually led to the development of a number of new cancer drugs. William Brody, president of the Salk Institute, phrases it well, saying “Tony Hunter’s discoveries have changed the landscape for the treatment of cancer and other related diseases and underscores the importance of basic science.”

Congrats on winning this prestigious award, Tony!

*We have a picture of Tony from the Experimental Biology conference 2012, where he’s sporting one of the original purple Faculty of 1000 t-shirts!

This brings back memories: a vintage F1000 T-shirt, modelled by Section Head Tony Hunter at #EB2012. pic.twitter.com/BPXUnOAc

— F1000Prime (@F1000) April 25, 2012