Annual Reviews is a non-profit publisher of highly-cited review articles that synthesize the research literature in clear and compelling style to stimulate discussion about the science that shapes our lives.
This year two successful candidates, Barbara Cannon and Jan Nedergaard, shared the award which includes a contribution to travel to the annual Experimental Biology meeting in San Diego from April 2-6th where they received their recognition plaque.
Barbara and Jan are both professors in the Department of Molecular Biosciences at The Wenner-Gren Institute, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden. They won their award for a series of insightful reviews over the years, not least the fundamental overview in Physiological Reviews on brown adipose tissue 2004. Their review 2007 in American Journal of Physiology (Endocrinology and Metabolism) collected data, overlooked by the metabolic community, that unexpectedly demonstrated that even adult humans possess active brown adipose tissue, a paper that opened for today’s broad interest in this tissue and pointed to the possibility that it can counteract the development of obesity and can ameliorate the metabolic syndrome, if kept active in adults.
This Annual Reviews award serves to highlight the value that review articles add to the research community. Reading one is like being transported into the laboratory of the leading scientists in the area, who explain what’s going on in the field. Readers come away with a richer understanding than they could gain in any other way and this is why Annual Reviews is a treasured resource.