The Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research has opened its 2015 call for nominations. This prestigious award recognizes individuals whose scientific research has made, or has the potential to make, significant contributions toward the improvement of human health.

Nominations will be accepted until March 15 at www.pauljanssenaward.com for consideration by an independent selection committee of world-renowned scientists. Beginning in 2015, the cash prize awarded to the scientist or group of scientists receiving the award will be increased to $200,000. This increase in the monetary award reflects the growing importance of basic biomedical research, and continued recognition by Johnson & Johnson of excellence in the field.

The Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research honors Dr. Paul Janssen (1926-2003), who is widely recognized as one of the most productive scientists of the 20th century. Known throughout the scientific community as Dr. Paul, Janssen was responsible for breakthrough treatments in disease areas including pain management, psychiatry, infectious disease and gastroenterology, and founded Janssen Pharmaceutical, a Johnson & Johnson Company.

"Innovative science and technology have the power to transform the world," said Paul Stoffels, M.D., chief scientific officer and worldwide chairman, Pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson. "Through the Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research, Johnson & Johnson honors the inspirational legacy of Dr. Paul and applauds today's researchers whose discoveries have the potential to transform the future of human health."

In 2014, the award was presented to Drs. Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, whose collaboration led to the discovery of a new method for precisely manipulating genetic information in ways that should produce new insights in health and disease, and may lead to the discovery of new targets for drug development. Charpentier and Doudna went on to win the 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences. Other laureates of the 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences included Drs. Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun, winners of the 2012 Dr. Paul Janssen Award.

Previous Award winners include David Julius, Ph.D., University of California San Francisco; Victor Ambros, Ph.D., University of Massachusetts Medical School; Gary Ruvkun, Ph.D., Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School; Napoleone Ferrara, M.D., Genentech Fellow; Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID); Erik De Clercq, M.D., Ph.D., chairman, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Medical School at the Catholic University of Leuven; Axel Ullrich, Ph.D., director, Department of Molecular Biology, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Germany; Professor Marc Feldmann, FMedSci, FAA, FRS, and Emeritus Professor Sir Ravinder Maini, FRCP, FMedSci, FRS, of the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, Imperial College London; and Craig Mello, Ph.D., Nobel Laureate, of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and University of Massachusetts Medical School.

The 2015 Dr. Paul Janssen Award winner will be announced in spring 2015.