The Wolf Prize is one of the world’s top honors in Mackay’s field, given to outstanding scientists for achievements in the interest of humankind. Mackay, William Neal Reynolds and University Distinguished Professor in NC State’s Department of Biological Sciences, received the award during a ceremony at the Knesset in Jerusalem in June, becoming the first NC State faculty member to receive this honor.

Mackay’s work focuses on the genetic and environmental factors affecting variation in complex traits, characteristics that can be tied to one or more genes in an organism. Her signature project is the Drosophila Genetic Reference Panel, a collection of more than 200 fruit fly lines, which hundreds of researchers around the world use in their work.

Why study the fruit fly? To learn more about humans.

“The remarkable thing is that 70 to 75 percent of human disease genes actually have a counterpart in the little fruit fly,” says Mackay, who is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.