Graduate Student Mira Chaurushiya Wins 2011-2012 Kamen Prize

June 4, 2012

By Kim McDonald

Graduate Student Mira Chaurushiya

Mira Chaurushiya, a graduate student in  Matthew Weitzman's laboratory, has won the 2011-2012 Kamen Prize  for her dissertation  "Cellular defenses and viral counterattacks during Herpes Simplex virus infection."

The Kamen Prize was established in 1978 by the friends and family of Martin Kamen, professor emeritus of chemistry at UC San Diego, to recognize the outstanding thesis in biochemistry annually.  Kamen, the co-discoverer of carbon 14 when he was at UC Berkeley in the early 1940s, came to UC San Diego in 1960 and continued his research on photosynthetic transport proteins until his retirement.  He died in 2002. A cash prize of $1,500 is awarded to the prize recipient in June and is invited to present the Martin D. Kamen Lecture the following academic year.