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Matt Stremlau, a North American regional winner, won the grand-prize for his essay "Why Old World Monkeys are Resistant to HIV/AIDS." Dr. Stremlau received his B.S. in chemistry from Haverford College. After graduation, he spent 1 year as a Henry Luce Fellow at the National Laboratory for Agrobiotechnology in Beijing, China, before beginning graduate studies at Harvard University. Here Dr. Stremlau investigated retroviral restriction in nonhuman primates in Dr. Joe Sodroski's laboratory. While at Harvard, Dr. Stremlau cofounded the International Science and Health Network, an equipment recycling program that sends scientific equipment to laboratories in the developing world. He currently works in the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator's Office at the State Department as an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow. Dr. Stremlau plans to start a postdoctoral fellowship in 2008 and is interested in emerging biotechnologies relevant to the developing world.

North America: Bo Huang for his essay "Molecular Accounting of a Cell." Dr. Huang was born in Chongqing, China. He graduated with honors in 2001 with a B.S. degree in chemistry from Peking University. As a graduate fellow at Stanford University, he worked on applying chemistry as a tool to solve biological problems under the direction of Dr. Richard N. Zare. His Ph.D. thesis was on the development of microfluidic devices for the analysis of individual cells using single-molecule detection. Now, as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, he is working with Dr. Xiaowei Zhuang on stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (STORM), a fluorescence microscopy technique that can achieve molecular-scale resolution in biological samples.

Europe: Mikaela Rapp, for her essay "The Ins and Outs of Membrane Proteins." Dr. Rapp grew up in Stockholm, Sweden. A strong interest in life science led to graduate studies in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at Stockholm University, where she pursued Ph.D. studies in the group of Dr. Gunnar von Heijne. Using large-scale cloning techniques, she performed a global topology analysis of the E. coli inner membrane proteome. Dr. Rapp defended her thesis in December 2006 and is currently learning membrane protein crystallography in the laboratory of Dr. Mika Jormakka at the Centenary Institute in Sydney, Australia. She plans to continue her scientific career as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Pär Nordlund at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

Japan: Takeshi Imai for his essay "Axonal Wiring Specificity by Differential cAMP Levels of the Mouse Olfactory System." Dr. Imai was born in Tokyo in 1978 and grew up in Ina, a small southern city in Nagano, Japan. There, surrounded by nature, he became fascinated by biology. In 2001, he received a B.S. degree in biophysics and biochemistry from the University of Tokyo. Dr. Imai's interest in the molecular biology of neural development led him remain at the University of Tokyo to pursue graduate studies in Dr. Hitoshi Sakano's laboratory, where he investigated the molecular mechanisms of the odorant receptor. He completed his Ph.D. in September 2006 but stayed on in Dr. Sakano's lab as a postdoctoral fellow. In his spare time, Dr. Imai enjoys fishing.

All Other Countries: Manuel de la Mata for his essay "The Transcriptional Control of Alternative Splicing." Dr. de la Mata was born in Santa Rosa, Argentina, where he lived until spending his high-school senior year as an exchange student in Salinas, California. He majored in chemistry at the University of Córdoba, Argentina, where as an undergraduate he studied the role of dendritic cells in the immune system in the lab of Dr. Clelia Riera under the direction of Dr. Pablo Iribarren. Dr. de la Mata entered a Ph.D. program at the University of Buenos Aires, where he studied the coupling of transcription with alternative splicing in the group of Dr. Alberto Kornblihtt. He defended his thesis in December 2006 and is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales at the University of Buenos Aires.