American Philosophical Society
Member History

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Resident (1)
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1Name:  Dr. Mary-Claire King
 Institution:  University of Washington School of Medicine
 Year Elected:  2012
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  207. Genetics
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1946
   
 
Mary-Claire King is currently the American Cancer Society Research Professor at the Department of Medicine (Medical Genetics) and the Department of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington, Seattle. Born in Illinois, she received her Ph.D. in 1973 from University of California, Berkeley. She has won the Brinker Award for Breast Cancer Research from the Komen Foundation (1999), the Genetics Prize of the Peter Gruber Foundation (2004), the Heineken Prize for Medicine of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (2006), the Lasker Award (2014), the National Medal of Science (2015), the Szent-Gyorgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research (2016), and the Helen Dean King Award of the Wistar Institute (2019). She is a member of the Institute of Medicine (1994), American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1999), National Academy of Sciences (2004), and the French Academy of Sciences (2009). Mary-Claire King's work revolutionized scientific approaches as well as clinical practice in breast cancer. In 1990, using then novel techniques, she defined and identified the location of a single gene (BRCA1) as causing inherited breast cancer. This gene and another gene (BRCA2) were also associated with an increased risk of ovarian cancer. Her collaboration with Israeli and Palestinian colleagues led to the identification of novel deafness genes. She also pioneered genetic techniques to define familial relationships of deceased individuals. She applied these tests to unite grandmothers with their grandchildren whose parents had been killed during state-sponsored violence in Argentina between 1976 and 1983. Mary-Claire's work has had a wide impact in the USA and internationally and she has received many honors. She was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2012.
 
Election Year
2012 (1)