The FINANCIAL -- For his novel approach to creating maps that enable researchers to zoom in on the human genome and reveal features of DNA structure inside the nucleus, Erez Lieberman Aiden has been named the 2011 Grand Prize winner for the GE & Science Prize for Young Life Scientists.

The annual competition includes a grand-prize award of $25,000 and is supported by GE Healthcare and the journal Science, which is published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society.

How does the two-meter-long human genome fold up inside the nucleus of a cell? Aiden, a fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and Visiting Faculty at Google, developed a method for three-dimensional genome sequencing that seems to answer this question. He and his team pioneered the technique, known as Hi-C, and deployed it to create "the first genome-wide spatial map of the human genome," he explained.

As a student in the Lander lab, Aiden worked with Nynke van Berkum to develop a new method for determining the 3D structure of nuclear DNA, and discovered that the human genome folds into a dense, unknotted structure known as the fractal globule. Aiden also developed a new, quantitative approach for the analysis of culture together with Jean-Baptiste Michel. Aiden grew up in New York City and studied mathematics, physics, and philosophy at Princeton University. He received a Ph.D. from Harvard and MIT, where he was advised by Eric Lander and Martin Nowak.

Aiden has received the NIH New Innovator Award, the American Physical Society's Award for the Best Doctoral Dissertation in Biological Physics, and the Lemelson-MIT student prize, given to the best student inventor at MIT.

Each year since 1995, the GE & Science Prize for Young Life Scientists has recognized innovative young molecular biologists at an early stage of their careers. Some 69 regional winners and 17 grand prize winners have so far received the award, honoring exceptional thesis work in the field of molecular biology.

Applicants for the 2011 GE & Science Prize for Young Life Scientists earned their Ph.D. degrees in 2010 and submitted a 1000-word essay based on their dissertations. Their essays were judged on the quality of research and the applicants' ability to articulate how their work would contribute to the field of molecular biology, which investigates biological processes in terms of the physical and chemical properties of molecules in a cell.

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