Professor Azim Surani, Emeritus Fellow of King’s and Director of Research at the Gurdon Institute, is the winner of the 2025 Kyoto Prize in the Life Sciences and Medicine for his discovery of genomic imprinting in mammals and elucidation of its molecular mechanisms.
His research demonstrated that both paternal and maternal genomes are indispensable for normal mammalian development and subsequently discovered genomic imprinting that confers specific modifications and complementary functions to each genome. Furthermore, he has played a pioneering role in elucidating its underlying mechanisms, thereby making contributions to foundational scientific insights across a broad spectrum of life science fields.
On being awarded the Kyoto Prize, Professor Surani said:
I am deeply honoured to have been awarded the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences for my discovery of genomic imprinting in mammals nearly four decades ago – a discovery that was unexpected, opening up exciting new avenues of research, including epigenetics and human development that we have since pursued.
It has been a tremendous privilege to work with many exceptional young scientists in my laboratory, and I am immensely grateful to them for their invaluable contributions.
You can read more about Professor Surani’s research and the 40th anniversary of his discovery here, and hear him talk about his Journey of Discovery.
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