Dr. Lewis C. Cantley Awarded the Third Annual Ross Prize in Molecular Medicine
Dr. Lewis C. Cantley, the Meyer Director of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center, has been awarded the third annual Ross Prize in Molecular Medicine from the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research and its open-access, peer-reviewed journal, Molecular Medicine.
Dr. Lewis C. Cantley. Photo Credit: John Abbott
The annual prize recognizes scientists who have made distinguished contributions to understanding how human disease develops and might be best treated, and who show promise for future contributions in the field of molecular medicine.
Dr. Cantley was recognized for his groundbreaking discovery of an enzyme called phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) and the signaling pathway that it controls. Dr. Cantley found that human cancers frequently occur due to activation of PI3K, a breakthrough that has led to the development of drugs that target that signaling pathway -- the first of which was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last year.
Dr. Cantley will receive the prize, which includes a $50,000 gift, during a ceremony on June 8 at the New York Academy of Sciences in Manhattan. Dr. Cantley, Dr. Harold Varmus, who recently joined Weill Cornell from the National Cancer Institute as the Lewis Thomas University Professor, and other prominent researchers will also give lectures during the event.
"It is a tremendous honor to receive this award," said Dr. Cantley, who is also the Margaret and Herman Sokol Professor in Oncology Research and a professor of cancer biology in medicine at Weill Cornell. "My laboratory discovered PI 3-kinase more than 25 years ago because of its co-purification with a variety of oncoproteins that caused cancers in mice and chickens. It was an unexpected discovery and it took us many years to understand why this enzyme, which produces a low abundant but powerful lipid, caused cancer. We now know that the lipid produced by PI 3-kinase is driving the growth of most human cancers."
Many PI 3-kinase inhibitors are now in clinical trials, and last summer, the first PI 3-kinase inhibitor was approved for treating chronic lymphocytic leukemia based on clinical trials conducted at the Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medical College and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Dr. Cantley said.
"It is likely that PI 3-kinase inhibitors will be useful in treating a wide variety of cancers as we learn how to best use these drugs in treating solid tumors," he added. "In accepting this award, I want to acknowledge an incredible group of brilliant students and postdoctoral fellows and collaborators who conducted the research that elucidated the PI 3-kinase pathway and its role in cancer."
Additional Awards and Honors
Dr. David Boyajian, an assistant professor of radiology, was recognized in October and December by NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center with a Quality and Patient Safety Star Award (QPStar). The QPStar recognizes individual staff or teams across all disciplines that improve patient outcomes and prevent patient harm.
Dr. Ronald Crystal, chairman of the Department of Genetic Medicine, the Bruce Webster Professor of Internal Medicine and a professor of medicine and of genetic medicine, was invited to Drexel University College of Medicine as the Robert F. Johnston, MD Memorial Visiting Professor and gave the lecture, "Using the Genome as a Drug," on Oct. 22.
Dr. Costantino Iadecola, director of the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute, the Anne Parrish Titzell Professor of Neurology and a professor of neuroscience, gave the keynote address at the 2014 Brain Ischemia and Stroke Conference on Dec. 10 in Rome, Italy. The talk was titled "Innate Immunity and Neurovascular Homeostasis: From Stroke to Neurodegeneration." The conference was organized by the University of Rome and Mario Negri Institute to encourage the integration of basic and clinical research through exchanging ideas with scientists and clinicians across the world.