Robert A. Weinberg Wins National Medal of Science
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (April 30, 1997) — Cancer research pioneer Dr. Robert A. Weinberg is among this year's recipients of the National Medal of Science, the nation's highest scientific honor. Dr. Weinberg is a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, the Daniel K. Ludwig Professor for Cancer Research in the Department of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an American Cancer Society Research Professor at MIT.
In announcing the awards today, the Presidential selection committee cited Dr. Weinberg's pioneering work in understanding the genetic basis of human cancer&emdash;work that has laid the foundation for finding better treatment strategies and eventually a cure for cancer. Dr. Weinberg and eight other recipients, including Dr. James Watson, who co-discovered the double-helix structure of DNA, will receive their medals from President Clinton in a ceremony at the White House later this year. (For more information about the Medal and a list of 1997 winners, see NSF and White House .)
"This year's medalists are exemplary leaders in research, innovation, and imagination," said President Clinton in a White House press release. "Their achievements have enabled new products and created new capabilities that have transformed our lives and that will shape our future."
"We are extremely pleased that the President's Committee has chosen Dr. Weinberg for this honor. Dr. Weinberg has made remarkable contributions to the field of cancer research and has enhanced our ability to tackle the roots of this disease, which strikes down almost half a million Americans each year," says Dr. Gerald R. Fink, Director of the Whitehead Institute.
"I am truly honored to receive this award," says Dr. Weinberg. "Today, the origin of cancer is no longer a mystery because of the basic research carried out in many laboratories over the past two decades. The cancer cell used to be a veritable black box. Now we view its inner workings with great clarity."
An internationally recognized pioneer in cancer research, Dr. Robert Weinberg led the groups that isolated the first human cancer-causing gene, the ras oncogene, and the first known tumor-suppressor gene, the retinoblastoma gene. The discovery of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes, often called the accelerators and brakes of cell growth, revolutionized the way scientists think about the origins of cancer and laid the groundwork for the notion that cancer is the result of genetic machinery gone awry. The novel paradigm of cancer as a genetic disease has also offered new hope for the development of novel cures based on the rationale that if the cancer cell is nothing more than a machine gone awry, it must be possible to fix it.
"Such development would require a precise understanding of the control circuitry governing normal cell proliferation and how it malfunctions in the cancer cell. Therein lies the key to really understanding the heart and mind of the cancer cell and the hope of finding ways to combat it," says Dr. Weinberg.
Understanding the heart and the mind of the rogue cell has been a full-time preoccupation for Dr. Weinberg since 1969 when he received his Ph.D. in Biology from MIT. Beginning with his work as a postdoctoral fellow at the Weizmann Institute in Israel and the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, Dr. Weinberg has sought to elucidate the mechanisms by which a normal cell turns cancerous.
In the late 1970s, Dr. Weinberg's group blazed the trail in the search for a human oncogene. Using gene transfer techniques, researchers in his lab inserted DNA from human bladder tumor cells into normal animal cells and found that the animal cells turned cancerous. So Dr. Weinberg's associates began inserting smaller and smaller pieces of DNA into the normal cell until in 1980 they found a single fragment&emdash;one gene&emdash;that turned the normal cell cancerous. This gene was found to belong to a family of related genes, called ras, that was later found to play a role in causing bladder, lung, and colon cancer in both rats and humans.
Even more astonishing results emerged from Dr. Weinberg's laboratory in 1982 when his students showed that a single, subtle genetic glitch in this oncogene topples the delicate balance between a bladder cell's normal and cancerous states. Since then more than 100 other oncogenes have been isolated. Today, scientists view oncogenes in the normal form as the "accelerators" that drive cell growth but malfunction in cancer cells to drive unbridled growth. That year, Dr. Weinberg was appointed Professor of Biology at MIT and became one of the five original members of the Whitehead Institute, an independent basic research institute closely affiliated with MIT.
In 1986, researchers in Dr. Weinberg's group made another seminal discovery when they isolated Rb, or the retinoblastoma gene, the first known growth-suppressor gene. The retinoblastoma protein, pRB, has proved to be a vital component of the machinery that constrains cell growth. In many cancer cells, the cell growth runs wild because such cells lack the retinoblastoma protein that is required to brake their progress.
Since 1990, Dr. Weinberg's research has focused on creating a clearer picture of how oncogenes, tumor suppressor genes, and other elements fit into the complex circuitry governing the advance of the cell through its normal life cycle, often called the "cell cycle." This progress is controlled by a central regulator, the cell cycle clock.
"Today we know many of the major components of the cell cycle clock. We are now exploring the subtleties, the control mechanisms that either expedite the forward motions of the clock or slow it down," says Dr. Weinberg.
Dr. Weinberg's lab is deciphering these mechanisms by making "knock-outs"—genetically engineered mice that lack some of the clock components—and then noting the effects of these losses on the development of these mice. Using this strategy, the Weinberg lab found that a protein called cyclin D1 plays an important role in the development of breast cells, and that another protein called cyclin D2 plays an important role in ovarian and testicular development. In both cases, an excess of a clock component is associated with tumors of these tissues. Thus, these "knock-out" mice are providing valuable clues to the origins of various types of cancer.
In addition to being a productive researcher, Dr. Weinberg is also a prolific writer. He is author or editor of five books and more than 250 articles. His two most recent books, intended for a lay audience, are the critically acclaimed Racing to the Beginning of the Road: The Search for the Origin of Cancer and Genes and the Biology of Cancer, co-authored with Dr. Harold E. Varmus, Director of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Weinberg is a Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Among Dr. Weinberg's many honors and awards are the Discover Magazine 1982 Scientist of the Year, the National Academy of Sciences/U.S. Steel Foundation Award in Molecular Biology, the Sloan Prize of the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation, the Bristol-Myers Award for Distinguished Achievement in Cancer Research, the Harvey Prize from the American Society for Technion Israel Institute of Technology, and the Gairdner Foundation International Award. He has served on scientific advisory boards for the Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna, Austria, the Weizmann Institute in Rehovoth, Israel, and the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. |
