Mary-Claire King will receive the public welfare medal-the most prestigious premium of the Academy

Washington-National Sciences presents its public assistance medal of 2025 Mary-Claire King for pioneering genetic research and transforming human rights. Its innovative use of the mitochondrial DNA brought together families who were victims of the “dirty war” in Argentina in the 70s -80s, advanced forensic genetics and illustrated the power of science in promoting justice and public welfare. The medal is the most prestigious prize of the Academy, established in 1914 and presented annually to honor the extraordinary use of science for public good.

King played an essential role in the reunion of broken families during the dirty war of Argentina (1976-1983), when the military dictatorship abducted infants from their families, placing them in police, military and collaborators. The grandparents of the missing children, who became known as Abuelas by Plaza de Mayo, sought the help of geneticists to identify the children they suspected to be among the victims of abduction. In 1983, grandparents asked for help to King.

With the parents of the children, also, among the missing, the determination of biological relationships between grandparents and missing children required new methods to establish kinship. The first development of a mathematical model – the grandfather’s index – then mitochondrial DNA sequencing (MTDNA), King was able to establish relationships at a high level of certainty only through maternal lines. Because MTDNA is inherited exclusively from the mother and remains unchanged, except for the -along the generations, King has been able to compare the MTDNA sequences with those of potential maternal relatives. For the first few years, all sequence was by hand, a DNA base pair at a time. The king’s approach has led to the identification and reunification of 138 families so far.

In order to place the approach on a rigorous legal and scientific basis, King worked with grandparents to set up the National Bank of Genetic Data in Argentina, the first institution dedicated to the systematic storage of genetic information for future identifications.

King extended his work to identify remains, based on DNA suitable to teeth to teeth DNA survivors maternal. Working with the central US armed forces identification laboratory, King identified the remains of the soldiers listed as Mia in the Vietnam War, the Korean War and the Second World War. He also assisted human rights organizations with six continents, while her young colleagues from Argentina have formed the Criminal Anthropology Team, who are now carrying out DNA identifications using this approach.

“The innovative contributions of Mary-Claire King to genetics not only advanced our scientific understanding, but also had a profound impact on human rights and social justice,” said the interior secretary of the National Academy of Sciences. “The use of pioneering of the mitochondrial DNA to bring together broken families of violence and repression exemplifies the power of science to serve humanity.”

“By applying its visionary genetics, Mary-Claire King has transformed how science can be used to seek justice and reunite families,” said the president of the National Academy of Sciences, Marcia McNutt. “Her work is a proof of the deep ways in which the scientific discovery can address some of the most pressing humanitarian challenges in the world.”

In addition to her work in forensic genetics and human rights, King is known for her discovery in 1990 BRCA1mutations in which a woman’s risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer increases significantly. The discovery has revolutionized our understanding of cancer genetics and led to progress in the prevention and treatment of cancer. She has also developed a brooca, a genomic screening panel that is not a math that allows simultaneous detection of several cancer -related genes and is now widely used in clinical laboratories.

The king’s impact on genetics began as a graduate student in the 1970s in Laboratory Allan Wilson at UC Berkeley, with the demonstration that people and chimpanzees are 99% identical in their gene encoding sequences, setting up for modern studies on genetic regulation in human evolution and receiving.

Since 1997, she has co-induced an Israeli-Palestinian-American collaboration to identify the genetic causes of Mendelian disorders in the Middle East families, improving access to genetic tests for families from all over the region and for the training of Palestinian graduates.

Most recently, King has made essential contributions to understanding schizophrenia, giving crucial evidence to which the disorder often appears from of novo Mutations that damage the genes that regulate neurogenesis in the prefrontal fetal cortex. By integrating the genome with neuroscience, she and her colleagues helped to discover the molecular bases of schizophrenia, offering new perspectives on her pathogenesis and potential therapeutic targets.

For these contributions and many more, King has received numerous awards and honors, including the Lasker – Koshland Special Achievement Prize in Medical Science (2014), the National Science medal (2016) and Canada Gairdner International Award (2021). King was elected in the National Academy of Medicine in 1994 and at the National Academy of Sciences in 2005.

King has been a member of the Faculty at UC Berkeley from 1975 to 1995, and since 1995 he has been the American Cancer Society professor in the Genome Medicine and Sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. King has also held leadership roles in major scientific institutions, including president of the American Society of Human Genetics and a founding member of the OMS Council. She was a member of the Board of Directors of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and for several study sections and councils of the National Health Institutes. He received honorary doctorates from 22 universities and research institutions around the world.

The public welfare medal will be presented to King on April 27 during the one of the Academy annual meetings. More information including a list of past recipients are available at www.nasonline.org/programs/awards/public-welfare-medal.html.

The National Academy of Sciences is a private, non -profit institution, established under a book of Congress signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. He recognizes scientific achievement and – with the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine – offers to the Federal Government and Politics.

Contact:
Molly Galvin
Director, executive communications
The Office of News and Public Information
National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine
202-334-2138
[email protected]; www.nationalacademi.org