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11 Scientists Receive $3 Million Each in First ‘Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences’

2013; Wolters Kluwer; Volume: 35; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1097/01.cot.0000429348.63915.94

1548-4688

Sarah DiGiulio,

Science, Research, and Medicine

FigureLewis C. Cantley, PhD, the researcher responsible for revealing one of the most frequently mutated genes in cancer—the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) signaling pathway—received a call in February from Art D. Levinson, PhD, Chairman of Genentech, Inc. and member of the Roche Board of Directors, informing Cantley he had won one of the inaugural Breakthrough Prizes in Life Science. “He said, ‘sit down because it's quite a bit of money,’ ”Cantley said in a telephone interview, talking about the conversation with Levinson, chairman of the board that granted the awards. “When he said $3 million, I almost fell over.” The Breakthrough Prizes in Life Sciences, awarded for the first time this year, recognize research aimed at curing intractable diseases and extending human life. The awards, administered by the nonprofit Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Foundation, are sponsored by: Mark Zuckerberg, Founder Chairman and CEO of Facebook and Priscilla Chan, his wife; Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, Inc.; Anne Wojcicki, Co-Founder of the 23andMe genetics company (who is married to Brin); and Yuri Milner, the Russian entrepreneur who founded Europe's leading Internet company, Mail.ru Group. “Our society needs more heroes who are scientists and researchers and engineers,” Zuckerberg said during the announcement event. “You guys are all doing the amazing work.” Cantley, the Margaret and Herman Sokol Professor and Director of the Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medical College and New York-Presbyterian Hospital, is now investigating the mechanism by which PI3K is activated by growth factors and cancer-causing oncogenes and how this leads to tumor growth. He leads a Stand Up To Cancer team of researchers studying the role of PI3K in the development of breast, ovarian, and endometrial cancers.Figure: (Left to right): ART D. LEVINSON, PHD; MARK ZUCKERBERG; and YURI MILNER, three of the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Foundation board members at the event in February announcing the awards.Sixteen PI3K-inhibitors are currently in clinical trials, Cantley said. “It will still require time to figure out how to use drugs in combination to really have an impact on disease—to understand which patients are likely to respond to which combinations. But, I think most people are convinced this is going to result in a new set of tools for treating cancer.” Zuckerberg said the award was about recognizing past work as much as inspiring future scientific discovery—“the next generation of students—trying to figure out what they should work on and research. Hopefully what we are doing can help create something that will be really inspirational to folks to do the important work that you guys are taking on.”Figure: LEWIS C. CANTLEY, PHDFigure: CHARLES L. SAWYERS, MDFigure: NAPOLEONE FERRARA, MD, PHDAnother awardee, Charles L. Sawyers, MD, Chair of the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, said via email that he hopes the prize will enable him to help further these aims. “I am thinking about ways I might inspire and enhance the careers of younger scientists.” Sawyers' research focuses on cancer drug resistance and developing novel therapies. His research on the mechanism of resistance to standard hormone therapy for advanced prostate cancer led to his discovery of enzalutamide (Xtandi, which received FDA approval last year for prostate cancer). Other work led to the development of the ABL kinase inhibitor imatinib for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia and the second-generation ABL inhibitor dasatinib to overcome imatinib resistance. “These 11 recipients—they're all trying to make a difference in the world,” Wojcicki said. “And, they do that without seeking fame or money. I hope this prize inspires, for generations to come, great researchers, great scientists, [with the knowledge] that the work that you're doing is important—and allows you to have great impact.” Napoleone Ferrara, MD, PhD, another awardee, was recognized for identifying the role of the vascular endothelial growth factor in promoting angiogenesis, which led to the development of two monoclonal antibody drugs: bevacizumab (for breast, brain, and colorectal cancers) and ranibizumab (for wet age-related macular degeneration). There are currently 10 FDA-approved drugs available to treat patients targeting VEGF, and Ferrara said his current research aims to identify additional therapeutic targets. “It's always a risk with this kind of work to study a new field. It's safer to do what's already well-established,” said Ferrara, Distinguished Professor of Pathology and Senior Deputy Director for Basic Sciences at Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego. “I was very fortunate this turned out to be an important field that was very fruitful.” All past prize winners will now become part of the Selection Committee for future awardees. The plan is to have five annual Breakthrough Prizes for past achievements in the field of life sciences selected by the Foundation's founding members and all past winners. Anyone will be able to nominate a candidate online; there are no age restrictions to win;, the award can be shared by any number of people; and the award can be received more than once. In addition to Cantley, Sawyers, and Ferrara, this year's inaugural winners are: Cornelia I. Bargmann, PhD, the Torsten N. Wiesel Professor and Head of the Lulu and Anthony Wang Laboratory of Neural Circuits and Behavior at Rockefeller University and an HHMI Investigator (for the genetics of neural circuits and behavior, and synaptic guidepost molecules); David Botstein, PhD, Director of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics and the Anthony B. Evnin Professor of Genomics at Princeton University (for the linkage mapping of Mendelian disease in humans using DNA polymorphisms); Hans Clevers, MD, PhD, Professor of Molecular Genetics at Hubrecht Institute and President of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (for describing the role of Wnt signaling in tissue stem cells and cancer); Titia de Lange, PhD, Leon Hess Professor, Head of the Laboratory of Cell Biology and Genetics, and Director of the Anderson Center for Cancer Research at Rockefeller University (for research on telomeres, illuminating how they protect chromosome ends and their role in genome instability in cancer); Eric S. Lander, PhD, President and Founding Director of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, and Professor of Biology at MIT (for the discovery of general principles for identifying human disease genes, and enabling their application to medicine through the creation and analysis of genetic, physical, and sequence maps of the human genome); Bert Vogelstein, MD, Director of the Ludwig Center and Clayton Professor of Oncology and Pathology at Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center and an HHMI investigator (for cancer genomics and tumor-suppressor genes); Robert A. Weinberg, MD, the Daniel K. Ludwig Professor for Cancer Research at MIT, Director of the MIT/Ludwig Center for Molecular Oncology, and Member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research (for characterization of human cancer genes); and Shinya Yamanaka, MD, PhD, Director of the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application at Kyoto University and Senior Investigator at Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco (for induced pluripotent stem cells).