Hull Receives Merck Irving S. Sigal Memorial Award

This year's second Merck Irving S. Sigal Memorial Award is presented to Christina M. Hull, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Departments of Biomolecular Chemistry and Medical Microbiology and Immunology, University of Wisconsin, Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.  Dr. Hull is being honored for her significant contributions to understanding the basic biology of microbes. 

Dr. Hull received her B.S. in Biology from the University of Utah and went on to complete her Ph.D. at the University of California, San Francisco, in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Program in Biological Sciences.  Dr. Hull carried out her Postdoctoral Fellowship at Duke University Medical Center with Dr. Joseph Heitman, M.D., Ph.D. 

As a graduate student with Dr. Alexander Johnson, Dr. Hull discovered a cryptic mating reaction in the pathogenic yeast Candida albicans and identified the molecular factors that control it.  This work led to identifying the transcription factors essential for the control of sexual development in another human fungal pathogen, Cryptococcus neoforman.  Dr. Hull is currently studying the molecular mechanisms that control infectious particle production in C. neoformans.  Recently, she led a consortium effort of 13 laboratories within the Cryptococcus community to develop community resource microarrays for the Cryptococcus genome, making this important reagent available to all researchers. 

Dr. Hull has received many competitive awards, including a Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences from the Burroughs Welcome Fund, the Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar Research Award from the March of Dimes, a UW Madison/Howard Hughes Medical Institute Career Development Start-Up Award, and a University of Wisconsin, Madison Medical Education Research Committee New Investigator Award. 

Dr. Hull was nominated by Dr. Robert Fillingame, Chair, Department ofBiomolecular Chemistry, and Dr. Rodney Welch, a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, Chair of the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology.  Both Drs. Fillingame and Welch are from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, School of Medicine and Public Health.