South Africa, 2009: Douglas R. Green

Always colorful, provocative, and imaginative, Doug Green is a familiar and prominent figure in most meetings on cell death. His wide-ranging interests have led him to important observations and discoveries regarding the sensitivities of cells of the immune system to toxins, growth and necrosis factors, interactions with related cells, and responses to genetic changes.

 

His curiosity in knowing more about how mitochondria impacted apoptosis led to a series of brilliant and daring experiments to track the step-by-step progress to apoptosis; and his curiosity about why some cells were more sensitive than others to identical challenges led to a detailed and well-designed exploration of autophagy, metabolism, and receptor-ligand interactions in cell death.