LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ -- Dr. Jonathan Yavelow (left) of Ewing Township, professor of biology at Rider University, is the 1997 recipient of the Dominick A. Iorio Award for faculty excellence in scientific research.

Each year Dr. Dominick Iorio, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Science at Rider, presents the award in his name at a Science Advisory Board meeting.

Dr. Yavelow earned the award for his work in the cellular and molecular biology of cancer, particularly on the role of protease inhibitors. His early research focused on protease inhibitors as a nutritionally relevant team of preventative agents. More recently, his work has centered on protease inhibitors as potential therapeutic agents against breast cancer.

A member of the Rider faculty since 1982, he has received of more than $1 million in grants to support his cancer research or to purchase equipment for his lab. Some of his recent grants include $100,000 from the National Institutes of Health (1995-1997), $62,500 from Rippel Foundation for equipment (1994-1996), $50,000 from the Children's Brain Tumor Foundation (1993-1994), and another $27,500 from the Children's Brain Tumor Foundation (1994-95).

Author of numerous scholarly articles, Dr. Yavelow has undergraduate science majors at Rider assist him with his cutting-edge research as do other Rider science faculty. He teaches several courses with laboratory components to include cell biology, cell and molecular biology, and biochemistry, and is advisor for several independent research projects.

He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California and his B.S. degree from American University in Washington, DC. He has also been a visiting scientist and a post-doctoral fellow at New York University Medical Center, a post-doctoral fellow at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and a visiting professor of biology and a visiting research fellow at Princeton University.