Dateline DFCI
Institute staff garner local and international honors for their work on leukemia, lung cancer, and more
The contributions that Dana-Farber's Bruce Spiegelman, PhD, has made to the understanding of metabolism and its relation to certain diseases earned him the fourth annual Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Metabolic Research. To be presented in October, the award carries a $50,000 cash prize and a commemorative medallion. Spiegelman's identification of the master gene regulator of fat-cell formation and development has led to breakthroughs in cancer, obesity, and diabetes research. Last February, he traveled to Stockholm, Sweden, to receive the third annual Rolf Luft Award for his pioneering work in endocrinology.
Among DFCI staff receiving awards in recent months is Bruce Spiegelman, PhD.
Spiegelman is one of several DFCI investigators to garner recognition in recent months. His colleague Pamela Silver, PhD, received a MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health, providing her with uninterrupted funding for the next 10 years. Silver's work involves how proteins and RNA molecules move in and out of the cell's nucleus, a key part of regulating cell activities.
An internal Dana-Farber honor, the Claire W. and Richard P. Morse Research Award, went this year to Scott Armstrong, MD, PhD, who tapped "gene chip" technology to identify a new disease known as mixed lineage leukemia. He and a team of physician-scientists recently began the first clinical trial in infants of a drug that targets the genetic roots of this unique and aggressive cancer.
Among other staff singled out, Susan Block, MD, chief of the Division of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care, was this year's recipient of the Distinguished Service Award from the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine … Eric Alejandro Sweet-Cordero, MD, earned a four-year fellowship from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to support his research in the genetics of lung cancer, while Elizabeth Maher, MD, PhD, garnered two awards to study the genetics of brain tumors, from the Goldhirsh Foundation and the Conneely-Kosinski Anaplastic Astrocytoma Research Fund … Aided by a Fulbright Award, Glorian Sorensen, PhD, MPH, director of DFCI's Center for Community-Based Research, plans to spend this winter in India, collaborating with researchers on smoking control and prevention projects … Loren Walensky, MD, PhD, will use a Lymphoma Research Foundation grant to generate new chemical tools to study and manipulate cell-death pathways … And Dana-Farber's Physician-in-Chief Emeritus Emil Frei III, MD, who helped revolutionize cancer care with the development of combination chemotherapy decades ago, received the 2003 Icon in Oncology Award from the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
