|
Hartwell receives Griffuel, Massry prizes
this week
By KRISTEN WOODWARD
|
Dr. Lee Hartwell, Center President
and Director
|
Dr. Lee Hartwell, Center president and director, this
week receives two top scientific awards for his research into
the cycle of cell growth and division.
Today, Hartwell accepts the 31 st annual Leopold Griffuel
Prize (Prix Leopold Griffuel) in Paris.
The award of 700,000 French francs (valued at about $93,000),
is sponsored by the French Association for Cancer Research. It
is designed to reward the accomplishments of leading cancer researchers
and encourage further research.
Past U.S. recipients of the Griffuel Prize include Samuel
Broder, former director of the National Cancer Institute; and
C. Everett Koop, former U.S. Surgeon General.
Saturday, Hartwell heads to Beverly Hills, Calif., where he
will be presented with the 2000 Massry Prize, which was announced
earlier this fall.
The $40,000 award, which comes with a 10-ounce gold medal,
honors those who have made outstanding contributions to biomedical
sciences and the advancement of health. The Massry Prize is given
each year by the Meira and Shaul G. Massry Foundation, a non-profit
organization dedicated to promoting education and research in
nephrology, physiology and related fields.
Past recipients of the Massry Prize include Gunter Blobel
of Rockefeller University, a cell biologist who last year won
the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine; and angiogenesis researcher
Judah Folkman, a surgeon and cell biologist from Harvard University.
In his 30 years of studying yeast, Hartwell has identified
more than 50 genes crucial to controlling the intricate program
of instructions by which a cell grows, rests and divides to replicate
itself.
Among Hartwell's discoveries in budding yeast is a gene called
CDC28, considered the key component of the cell's "division
clock."
Learning when and why the cell cycle goes awry often leading
to genetic errors and the uncontrolled growth that is characteristic
of cancer is the centerpiece of his work.
The conviction that the development of cells (including human
cells) could be discerned from yeast was a "fairly risky
assumption" in the early days of his career in the 1960s,
Hartwell says. Now, more than 30 years later, he is committed
to the application of knowledge that he and his many colleagues
have acquired.
Hartwell joined the University of Washington faculty in 1968
and has been a professor of genetics there since 1973.
In 1996 he joined the Hutch faculty and in 1997 became its
president and director. At the Hutch, Hartwell's yeast-related
research is being used to develop drugs for use against cancer
and other diseases.
|