Scott Emr, director of Cornell's Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology, and Richard Durrett, Cornell professor of mathematics, have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

The two are among 90 new members and foreign associates recognized for their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Election to the academy, a private organization dedicated to the furtherance of science and its use for the general welfare, is considered one of the highest honors for a U.S. scientist or engineer.

Emr, who joined the Cornell faculty in 2007, works on uncovering the molecular details of essential processes that occur in all cells. For example, Emr has helped explain how proteins get in and out of cells, processes called endocytosis and secretion that have provided other scientists with new pathways and targets for cutting-edge research on virology, HIV/AIDS, cancer, immunology, development and neurobiology.

His research has revealed how proteins/hormones attach to receptors on a cell's surface, become encapsulated in vesicles as they forge into the cell's body and are delivered to areas within the cells, where they activate basic cellular processes. Similarly, he has shown that in the process of secretion, proteins such as insulin are produced within cells and carried by vesicles to the cell's surface, where the vesicle fuses with the cell's membrane, and the proteins are released outside the cell.

Emr earned his Ph.D. in microbiology and molecular genetics at Harvard University in 1981. Prior to joining the Cornell faculty, he was a professor of cellular and molecular medicine at the University of California-San Diego School of Medicine and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Mathematician Durrett earned his doctorate from Stanford University in 1976 and joined the Cornell faculty in 1985. His research involves using probability theory to understand processes in ecology and genetics.

For the last decade, Durrett has worked with Cornell professor Chip Aquadro and colleagues to study the evolution of DNA repeat sequences and to look for footprints of adaptive evolution. With adjunct professor Rasmus Nielsen, he developed methods for studying genome rearrangement; those methods are now being used in a project with Cornell professor Steve Tanksley to compare the genetic makeup of tomatoes, eggplant and peppers. Durrett's other recent work with Ph.D. student Deena Schmidt is relevant to regulatory sequence evolution and multi-stage carcinogenesis.

Durrett has published more than 160 scholarly articles and eight books on probability, most recently "Random Graph Dynamics" (Cambridge University Press, 2006) and "Probability Models for DNA Sequence Evolution" (Springer, 2002).