In 1988, as a result of Ph.D. thesis work studying the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and the genetic and molecular characterization of the ced-9 gene, Michael Hengartner showed that ced-9 is a survival gene required to protect surviving cells from programmed cell death, or apoptosis. Hengartner additionally demonstrated that ced-9 encodes a nematode homolog of the proto-oncogene bcl-2. Hengartner had selected C. elegans as a model organism to study basic biological processes, believing that many of the same molecular mechanisms identified in C. elegans also function in humans. Hengartner's thesis work and subsequent research was instrumental in confirming the conserved nature of the apoptotic program through evolution and was applied in both the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.

Born in St. Gallen, Switzerland, Hengartner grew up in Quebec City, Canada, where he obtained his B.Sc. degree in biochemistry at the Université Laval. Until his graduation in 1988, he worked...