Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Meenhard Herlyn

2010; Wiley; Volume: 23; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1755-148x.2010.00683.x

1755-148X

Ruth Halaban,

Melanoma and MAPK Pathways

The first time I met Meenhard was in 1985 when he came to my laboratory to learn how to grow normal human melanocytes in culture. I remember thinking to myself, ‘who is this guy?’ I searched in PubMed and all that I found were words like: ‘monoclonal antibodies’ and ‘antigens’, mostly in relation to colorectal carcinoma. Little did I know. My next encounter was a year later when Meenhard invited me to the Wistar Institute to give a talk and I had a chat with Dr. Koprowski, the director of the Wistar at the time. He told me with great pride that Meenhard was a wizard at getting grant money. I think that probably even Dr. Koprowski could not have foreseen the trajectory of Meenhard’s career, as he made the transition to melanocytes and melanoma research. And now, two and a half decades later, there is hardly a research question related to normal and malignant melanocytes that has not been addressed by Meenhard. The scope of his investigations includes growth factors and receptors, development of three-dimensional culture conditions that have been used to study cell–cell interactions, and the effect of the microenvironment on tumor development and drug treatment. Meenhard has contributed immensely to our understanding of cancer-initiating cells, signal transduction in response to drug treatments, melanoma–stroma interactions, metastasis and homing of melanoma cells and targeted therapy, as is reflected in over 300 publications. But this enormous list of research papers is only a portion of Meenhard’s contribution to the melanoma field. While most of us are content to pursue only our research interests, Meenhard has taken it upon himself to galvanize the melanoma community into combining efforts, so progress is faster and more effective. He established the Society for Melanoma Research in 2004 and served as its President for 3 years. He currently plays a critical role in the Melanoma Research Foundation, acting as the chair of the scientific advisory committee. He serves on various committees, local, national and international, providing major input on research endeavors and financial support. He is constantly posing new challenges, such as the identification of melanoma markers that can be used in the clinical setting and, more recently, the establishment of a pre-clinical consortium for the treatment of melanoma. His interactions with private and federal agencies have resulted in increased funding for melanoma research above and beyond past allocations. And again, this is not all that can be said about Meenhard. He likes to see the world from 5,000 feet above ground level, virtually and figuratively. Meenhard often commutes by flying his own airplane, and up there, I imagine, also defines some global questions related to melanoma. I would be willing to bet that it was up in the air that the “melanoma road map” and “driving the melanoma landscape” were conceived. Farming is one of his interests as well. Meenhard grew up on a farm in a small village in Northern Germany. This experience led him to enroll in the Veterinary Medical School, Hannover, Germany. While still in school, he had to return to the farm when his father fell ill, but after a few months, he resolved to continue his studies – luckily for us. While there, Meenhard met his wife Dorothee, a talented scientist in immunobiology who has been by his side all of these years and, as told to me by Meenhard himself, has helped harness his ideas into proper sentences that make sense to reviewers and readers. To cap it all off, Meenhard represents the ‘voice of melanoma research’. For the past 5 years he has delivered over 100 lectures in various institutions and conferences. When I googled him recently to ensure that I really know everything, I discovered on the ‘biomedexperts’ site a world map with ‘cities where this author and co-authors have publications’. It looked like an international airline route, extending all over the USA, Europe, and even the Far East, Korea, China, India and Australia, with Philadelphia as the center. It all shows what Meenhard does best: mentoring and collaborating with as many investigators as possible, bringing the community of melanoma scientists together, in other words, being a true leader. Meenhard, ‘Ishar Koach’, or as translated by George Lucas, ‘Let the force be with you’!