BCRF Grantees in the News!
During the first half of 2011, the following BCRF-funded grantees were recognized for their scientific accomplishments and/or elected by their peers to head national biomedical organizations.
Sir Paul Nurse FRS, formerly president of The Rockefeller University, took office as President of the Royal Society in December 2010. The Royal Society, founded in London in 1660, is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence and today functions as a scientific advisor to the British government.
In February 2011, Titia de Lange, PhD (The Rockefeller University) was honored with the 2011 Vilcek Prize for Biomedical Science, in recognition of her work with telomeres, sequences of DNA which are found at the ends of chromosomes. When telomeres malfunction, genetic instability can result; this process is linked to breast and other cancers as well as to the aging process.
On February 24, Olufunmilayo (Funmi) Olopade, MB BS FACP (University of Chicago) was appointed by President Obama as one of the five new members of the National Cancer Advisory Board.
In April, several BCRF investigators were honored at the 102nd annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).
Judy Garber, MD, MPH (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School) was inaugurated as president of AACR. Susan B. Horwitz, PhD (Albert Einstein College of Medicine) was presented with the AACR Lifetime Achievement Award in Cancer Research, in recognition of her pioneering work on taxol and its use as first-line treatment for breast and other cancers.
Also in April, Charles L. Sawyers, MD (Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center) received the 2011 American Society for Clinical Investigation's Stanley J. Korsmeyer Award, in recognition of his contributions to the development of novel therapeutics in the treatment of leukemia and other forms of cancer.
On April 3, the 2011 New York Emmy Award in the Health/Science Program was presented to the producers of Breast Cancer: New Protocols & Greater Hope. This special featured Robert Schneider, PhD (NYU School of Medicine), who discussed his BCRF-funded work on inflammatory breast cancer.
On April 4, the American Chemical Society (ACS) named Shaomeng Wang, PhD (University of Michigan) one of its two new editors for the peer-reviewed Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.
At the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in June, Robert Weinberg, PhD (Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research) will be presented with the Science of Oncology Award and will deliver the accompanying lecture. Dr. Weinberg is most widely known for his discovery of the first human oncogene, the ras oncogene, which causes normal cells to form tumors, and the isolation of the first known tumor suppressor gene, the Rb gene. Also, Martine J. Piccart-Gebhart, MD, PhD (Institut Jules Bordet) received the 2011 ASCO Statesman Award, for her extraordinary volunteer service, dedication, and commitment to ASCO. Daniel F. Hayes, MD (University of Michigan) and Kathy D. Miller, MD (Indiana University School of Medicine) will be sworn in as the newest member of ASCO's Board of Directors and the Society's Nominating Committee, respectively.
