the question: How can small, random genetic changes be converted into useful changes in complex body parts? Public service Kirschner has been an advocate for federal biomedical research funding and served as first chair of the Joint Steering Committee for Public Policy, a coalition of scientific societies he helped create in 1993 to educate the U.S. Congress on biomedical research and lobby for public funding of it. In 2014, Kirschner (together with Bruce Alberts, Shirley Tilghman and Harold Varmus) called for a number of changes to the system of US biomedical science, with the intention of reducing "hypercompetition" This publication led to the formation of an organization, Rescuing Biomedical Research, that aims to collect community input and propose changes to the structure of academic science in the USA. Kirschner helped launch the monthly, peer-reviewed journal PLoS Biology in October 2003 as a member of the editorial board and senior author of a paper in the inaugural issue. The journal was the first publishing venture from the San Francisco-based Public Library of Science (PLoS), which had begun three years previously as a grassroots organization of scientists advocating free and unrestricted access to the scientific literature Books with John Gerhart, Cells, Embryos, and Evolution: Toward a Cellular and Developmental Understanding of Phenotypic Variation and Evolutionary Adaptability (Blackwell's, 1997) with John Gerhart, The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin's Dilemma (Yale University Press 2005) Awards and associations 1989–present - Member, National Academy of Sciences 1989–present - Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1990-1991 - President, American Society for Cell Biology 1991 - Richard Lounsbery Award 1996 - Public Service Award, American Society for Cell Biology 1999–present - Foreign Member, Royal Society of London 1999–present - Foreign Member, Academia Europaea 2001 - William C. Rose Award, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 2001 - Gairdner Foundation International Award (Canada) 2003 - Rabbi Shai Shacknai Memorial Prize in Immunology and Cancer Research, Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem 2003 - E.B. Wilson Medal, American Society for Cell Biology (the ASCB's highest honor) 2004 - Dickson Prize for Science, Carnegie Mellon University 2015 - Harvey Prize, Technion Institute, Israel. References External links Marc W. Kirschner, Ph.D., (Faculty page), Harvard Department of Systems Biology. Marc Kirschner scientific publications list on Pubget. . Marc W. Kirschner's Seminar: "The Origin of Vertebrates" Video: "Systems questions in cell biology", NIH Director's Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series, 17 October 2007. (Audio podcast