2026 CME STEM Leadership Award for Origins of Life Research, CME NASA Symposium, Chicago

Jack W. Szostak is a renowned Canadian‑American biologist and University Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Chicago, where he has served since 2022. He is also an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His research centers on the chemical origins of life, with pioneering contributions to self‑replicating systems, protocell design, nonenzymatic RNA replication, and primitive biochemical pathways.

Szostak earned his B.Sc. in Cell Biology from McGill University (1972) and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Cornell University (1977). He began his independent career at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, later holding professorships in Genetics and in Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University.

He shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol Greider for discovering how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase. His honors also include the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award (2006), the NAS Award in Molecular Biology (1994), the Genetics Society of America Medal (2000), the ACS Rochester Section’s Harrison Howe Award (2003), the Imbach-Townsend Award from IS3NA (2020), Walker Prize (2019), and election as a Fellow of the Royal Society (2019).

Szostak has published influential work in the Journal of the American Chemical Society on RNA chemistry and origins‑of‑life mechanisms, bridging biochemistry, chemical biology, and prebiotic chemistry in ways that continue to shape multiple scientific fields.

2026 CME NASA Symposium Abstract