Tag: Lewis Cantley

West Virginia Native, Renowned Cancer Scientist, Speaking At WVU

Internationally renowned cancer scientist Lewis Cantley, a West Virginia native, will deliver the 2014 Laurence and Jean DeLynn Lecture at West Virginia…

Internationally renowned cancer scientist Lewis Cantley, a West Virginia native,  will deliver the 2014 Laurence and Jean DeLynn Lecture at West Virginia University Monday.

Cantley grew up in Big Chimney in Kanawha County, graduated from West Virginia Wesleyan and then went on to Harvard.

The biochemist discovered a family of enzymes fundamental to understanding cancer biology.

Cantley’s discovery earned him one of the world’s most prestigious academic honors in medicine – the 2013 Breakthrough in Life Sciences Prize.

His work has led to the development of personalized cancer therapies and has resulted in revolutionary treatments for cancer,  diabetes,  and autoimmune diseases.

Monday’s lecture is scheduled in the West Virginia University Health Sciences Center’s Fukushima Auditorium at 3:30 pm.

Lew Cantley – Harvard Biochemist and Cell Biologist

Back in 1985 Dr. Lewis Cantley, a native of Big Chimney in Kanawha County, discovered an enzyme called PI3-Kinase. At the time his scientific colleagues…

Back in 1985 Dr. Lewis Cantley, a native of Big Chimney in Kanawha County, discovered an enzyme called PI3-Kinase.  At the time his scientific colleagues thought he couldn’t be right.  How could a chemist discover something so fundamental to biology?

But Cantley was proved right and PI3-Kinase turned out to be revolutionary in cell biology.  It explains cell growth – for example, how a child grows into an adult.  It plays a major role in how the body regulates glucose, central to our understanding of diabetes.  But PI3-Kinase also explains the growth of a variety of cancers, so is central to the development of new drug treatments targeting cancer.

“The Cantley Lab” at Harvard Medical School continues to work at the cutting edge of research into PI3K and its role in diabetes, obesity and cancer.  Cantley’s work on sugar’s link to some cancers was recently featured on CBS’s 60 Minutes.  And many of Cantley’s colleagues say he is a likely future winner of the Nobel Prize.

At the end of 2012 Lewis Cantley became the new Director of the Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medical College and New York Presbyterian Hospital.   In 2013 Cantley was one of the inaugural winners of the Breakthrough Prize in Life Science with an award of $3 million, it’s the world’s largest prize in the sciences.

   

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