Few people have made as many breakthroughs in molecular genetics as Ronald Evans.

The professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., will accept a 2006 Gairdner Award in medicine today for the co-discovery and subsequent work on a super family of hormone receptors that regulate gene expression by acting as on-off switches.

"The switch is something like molecular software for the hardware of the genome. It activates genetic programs."

By activating these switches in certain tissues or organs at certain times, Evans has shown that it is possible to manipulate physiology and metabolism. Identifying and activating the molecular switch that controls genes involved in regulating sugar and fat metabolism is considered one of his key findings.

Evans uses his research with hormone receptors to find ways to treat or prevent metabolic disease. He says his work has the potential to help fight obesity, diabetes, certain kinds of muscle diseases and cancer.