Winner: Jorge Benach

Jorge BenachProfessor

Jorge Benach of Setauket has been named a 2010 Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Benach, a distinguished professor and chair of Stony Brook University School of Medicine's Department of Molecular Genetics and Biology, is credited with discovering the Borrelia burgdorfei organism that causes Lyme disease in 1984. He is also chairman of the scientific and advisory board of the New York State Department of Health's Tick-Borne Disease Institute.