Professor Kazutoshi Mori of the Division of Biological Science has been named as one of five winners of the 2018 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.

The award honors transformative advances toward understanding living systems and extending human life.

Professor Mori was recognized “for elucidating the unfolded protein response, a cellular quality-control system that detects disease-causing unfolded proteins and directs cells to take corrective measures”, according to the award citation.

The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Foundation was established by Yuri Miller, an entrepreneur and philanthropist, Sergey Brin, a Google co-founder, Anne Wojcicki, the founder of the genetics company 23andMe, and Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook.