We are pleased to announce winners of the 2015 Sanofi-Cell Research Outstanding Research Article Award: Drs Ligang Wu, Fuchou Tang and Jinsong Li, for their paper entitled “Correction of a genetic disease by CRISPR-Cas9-mediated gene editing in mouse spermatogonial stem cells”; Drs Jiafu Long and Mingjie Zhang, for their paper entitled “Angiomotin binding-induced activation of Merlin/NF2 in the Hippo pathway”; and Dr Feng Liu, for his paper entitled “G protein-coupled receptor 183 facilitates endothelial-to-hematopoietic transition via Notch1 inhibition”. Each award consists of a prize of €5 000 sponsored by Sanofi.

Recent studies reported that the CRISPR-Cas9 system could correct disease-causing mutations in mice. Nevertheless, direct injection of the CRISPR-Cas9 system into zygotes could not produce healthy progeny at an efficiency of 100%. Here, in the first award-winning research article, published in the January 2015 issue, Drs Ligang Wu, Fuchou Tang, Jinsong Li and their colleagues1 have demonstrated that the CRISPR-Cas9 system can be successfully applied in spermatogonial stem cells to efficiently generate gene-modified mice or cure genetic diseases in mice. A major question unresolved in the Hippo pathway is which factor acts directly upstream of Merlin to regulate its auto-inhibited conformation. In the second award-winning research article, published in the July 2015 issue, Drs Jiafu Long, Mingjie Zhang and their colleagues2 demonstrated that angiomotin can directly bind to and concomitantly release the auto-inhibited conformation of Merlin, thereby promoting Merlin's binding to Lats1/2 and subsequently activating the Hippo pathway. It is well known that embryonic hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) are generated from specified hemogenic endothelium through endothelial-to-hematopoietic transition (EHT), but the mechanism governing this process remains poorly understood. In the third award-winning research article, published in the October 2015 issue, Dr Feng Liu and his colleagues3 showed that G protein-coupled receptor 183 signaling serves as an indispensable switch for HSPC emergence by repressing Notch signaling before the onset of EHT.

Please join us to congratulate Drs Wu, Tang and Li, Long and Zhang, and Liu on their winning the 2015 Sanofi-Cell Research Outstanding Paper Award.