Growing up on a small farm in New Jersey, Dr. Ralph Brinster's interest in animals started early. As a teenager, he ran a small poultry business that helped pay for his post-secondary education.

Brinster, a veterinarian and the Richard King Mellon Professor of Reproductive Physiology at the University of Pennsylvania, is one of the recipients of this year's Gairdner Awards.

Brinster is receiving the award for "his pioneering discoveries in germ line modification in mammals," according to the Gairdner Foundation. "I was tremendously surprised and very honoured. This is one of science's top awards," Brinster told the Star.

Brinster, who credits much of his professional success to the impressive students he works with in his lab, is known for his many research achievements in reproduction, genetics and stem cell biology, particularly as a leader in the biology of germ cells, according to Bellwether, the newsmagazine of the University of Pennsylvania's School of Veterinary Medicine.

He has established techniques to grow and manipulate eggs and has applied these methods to generate genetic changes in mice and other animals.

Brinster's work is said to have "revolutionized" the ability to understand gene function in mammals and is a pioneer in the field of mammalian transgenesis, or the transfer of genetic material from one living organism to another.