The Heinz Family Foundation, in Pittsburgh, has tapped Joseph DeRisi, a molecular biologist who is searching for a cure for malaria, as one of five people named Heinz Award winners today, reports the Associated Press.

The annual $250,000 prize is given to people who make important contributions in the arts and humanities; the environment; the human condition; public policy; or technology, the economy, or employment.

Other winners include Thomas FitzGerald, of Louisville, Ky., who founded the Kentucky Resources Council; Robert Greenstein, of Washington, who founded the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; Ann Hamilton, of Columbus, Ohio, who is an artist and a professor of art at Ohio State University; and Brenda Krause Eheart, of Champaign, Ill., who founded Generations of Hope and Hope Meadows, housing programs for foster children, their adoptive parents, and elderly people.