Leading Biologist And Cancer Researcher To Speak At Institute For Advanced Study
Biologist Robert A. Weinberg, an internationally recognized authority on the genetic basis of human cancer, will present "How Human Tumors Form" on April 27 at 4:30 p.m. in Wolfensohn Hall on the campus of the Institute for Advanced Study.
Dr. Weinberg is a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and the Daniel K. Ludwig Professor for Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Cancers in humans arise over a lifetime from the accumulation of mutations in selected genes in a cell. At least three sets or classes of genes that contribute to the development of these cancers have been uncovered: oncogenes, tumor suppressor genes, and genes involved in DNA damage repair. When a critical combination of defects arise in a cell, cancers are detected but continue to evolve prior to and after treatments. More recent research has uncovered mechanisms explaining how can cells invade and form distant metastases.
Dr. Weinberg and his colleagues isolated the first human cancer-causing gene, the ras oncogene, and the first known tumor suppressor gene, Rb, the retinoblastoma gene. More recently, his group has succeeded in creating the first genetically defined human cancer cells. Dr. Weinberg is particularly interested in applying this knowledge to improve the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer.
Dr. Weinberg is the author or editor of five books and more than 325 articles. His three most recent books are: One Renegade Cell (1999), Racing to the Beginning of the Road: The Search for the Origin of Cancer (1998) and Genes and the Biology of Cancer (1992, co-authored with Dr. Harold E. Varmus, former Director of the National Institutes of Health). He is an elected Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
A 1997 recipient of the National Medal of Science, Dr. Weinberg's many other honors and awards include: the Discover Magazine Scientist of the Year (1982); the National Academy of Sciences/U.S. Steel Foundation Award in Molecular Biology (1984); the Sloan Prize of the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation (1987); the Gairdner Foundation International Award (1992); the Harvey Prize from the American Society for Technion Israel Institute of Technology (1994); the Keio Medical Science Foundation Prize (1997); the City of Medicine Award (1999); the Wolf Foundation Prize (2004); and the Prince of Asturias Science Award (2004). He has served on scientific advisory boards for the Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna, Austria, the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel, and the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Born in Pittsburgh in 1942, Dr. Weinberg received his B.S. (1964) and Ph.D. (1969) degrees in Biology from MIT. He did postdoctoral research at the Weizmann Institute and the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, and then returned to MIT in 1972. In 1982, he was appointed Professor of Biology at MIT and also became one of the five original Members of the Whitehead Institute. He has been an American Cancer Society Research Professor at Whitehead and MIT since 1985.
The lecture, which is sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Study�s Center for Systems Biology, School of Natural Sciences, is free and open to the public. For further information, call (609) 734-8203.