Class
| • | 2. Biological Sciences | [X] |
| | 1 | Name: | Dr. Mina J. Bissell | | | Institution: | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory | | | Year Elected: | 2007 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 202. Cellular and Developmental Biology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1940 | | | | | | |
Dr. Mina J. Bissell is a world-renowned leader in the area of the role of extracellular matrix (ECM) and microenvironment in regulation of tissue-specific function with special emphasis in breast cancer, where she has changed some established paradigms. She earned an A.B. with honors in chemistry from Harvard/Radcliffe College and a Ph.D. in bacterial genetics from Harvard University in 1969. She was a Milton Fellow at Harvard and an American Cancer Society Fellow in the Department of Molecular Biology at U.C. Berkeley. She joined the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 1972. Dr. Bissell became a Senior Scientist in 1977, the Director of Cell & Molecular Biology in 1988, and was appointed Director of all of Life Sciences in 1992. Dr. Bissell has authored more than 280 publications and sits on the editorial board of many scientific journals, most recently Science magazine and Journal of Cell Science. She also sits on a number of national and international scientific and government boards. She has received numerous awards and citations and has given more than 80 'named and distinguished' lectures. She was a Fogarty Fellow in 1984, a Guggenheim fellow in 1992 and was elected an AAAS fellow in 1994. She received the 1996 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award and medal, the highest honor of the US Department of Energy. In 1997, she was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and served as President of the American Society for Cell Biology. In 1998, she received the Mellon Award from the University of Pittsburgh and was the 1999 recipient of the Eli Lilly/Clowes Award of the American Association for Cancer Research. In 2001, Dr. Bissell received both an honorary doctorate from the Pierre & Marie Curie University in Paris and the first "Innovator Award" of the US Army breast cancer program. In 2002, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was the President of the International Society of Differentiation. Upon stepping down as the Life Science's Division Director, she was named Distinguished Scientist (one of seven, the only woman and the only life scientist to achieve this status) and Senior Advisor to the Laboratory Director on Biology. In 2003, she received the Brinker Award from the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. In 2004, she was among the 13 recipients of the first Discovery Health Channel Medical Honor and received another honorary doctorate from the University of Copenhagen. In 2005, she became the first OBER/DOE Distinguished Scientist Fellow in Life Sciences and received a $1.25 million award for 5 years. In 2006, Dr. Bissell received the H. Lee Moffit Cancer Center Ted Couch Lectureship and Award. In 2007, she received the Pezcoller Foundation-AACR International Award for Cancer Research. In 2008 she received the American Cancer Society's Medal of Honor in Basic Research, and the University of Porto and the Institute of Molecular Pathology and Immunology established the Mina J. Bissell Award, a medal to be given out every two years to a person who has "transformed our perception of a topic in science." The American Italian Cancer Foundation awarded her their 2010 Prize for Scientific Excellence in Medicine for "having changed the accepted paradigms in cancer research, for pioneering to create the field of Tumor Microenvironment, and for the courage to persist not only until it is well accepted but also put to clinical use" and in 2011 she was named the recipient of the Jill Rose Award by the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. In 2017 she was honored with the 14th AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research and in 2019 she was the recipient of both the APS Jonathan E. Rhoads Medal for Distinguished Service to Medicine and the Weizmann Women & Science Award. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2010 and the American Philosophical Society in 2007. | |
| 2 | Name: | Dr. Ronald M. Evans | | | Institution: | The Salk Institute | | | Year Elected: | 2007 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 202. Cellular and Developmental Biology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1949 | | | | | | |
Ronald Evans is March of Dimes Professor in Molecular & Developmental Neurobiology at the Salk Institute and an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His discovery of the superfamily of nuclear receptors, including the mineralocorticoid, thyroid, retinoic acid (vitamin A), and retinoid X receptors, was a watershed in the field. His discovery of RXR and its heterodimeric partners proved to be the "Rosetta stone" for identifying hormonal ligands of several hitherto-orphan nuclear receptors, with profound implications for normal physiology, disease pathogenesis and drug discovery. Dr. Evans' discoveries in the field of nuclear hormone receptors defined a unitary signaling pathway and a central paradigm for the control of eukaryotic gene expression. His work established a transcriptional basis to physiology and has led to a new generation of drugs for cancer, metabolic disease and the treatment of muscular dystrophies. He has received numerous awards for his efforts, including the Pasarow Award in Cancer Research (1993); the Bristol-Myers Squibb Award in Metabolic Research (2000); the March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology (2003); the General Motors Sloan Prize in Cancer Research (2003); the Keio Medical Science Prize, Japan (2003); the Lasker Basic Medical Research Award (2004); the Grande Medaille d'Or of the French Academy of Sciences (2005); the Harvey Prize (2006); the Gairdner International Award (2006); and the Lipman Award of the American Society for Biochemistry & Molecular Biology (2007). | |
| 3 | Name: | Dr. Louis J. Ignarro | | | Institution: | University of Callifornia, Los Angeles | | | Year Elected: | 2007 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1941 | | | | | | |
Louis J. Ignarro is a Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology at the UCLA School of Medicine and winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Medicine for his groundbreaking discovery of the importance of nitric oxide in cardiovascular health. In addition to the Nobel Prize, Dr. Ignarro has also received numerous other special awards for his research, including the Basic Research Prize of the American Heart Association, the CIBA award for Hypertension Research, and the Roussel Uclaf Prize for Cell Communication and Signaling. He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and has published over 500 scholarly articles in his career. For nearly 30 years Dr. Ignarro's research has focused on the role of nitric oxide in the cardiovascular system. Among the most significant contributions from Dr. Ignarro's wealth of research is the discovery that nitric oxide is produced in the blood vessels and controls the flow of blood by signaling the vessels to expand and contract. A shortage of nitric oxide production, caused by poor diet and lack of physical activity, leads to the onset and increasing severity of cardiovascular disease, including heart attack, stroke, and high cholesterol. In addition, Dr. Ignarro's experiments in 1990 led to the discovery that nitric oxide is the neurotransmitter responsible for penile erection. The discovery made it possible to develop and market Viagra, the first oral medication for the effective treatment of erectile dysfunction. As a result of his role in this blockbuster drug, Dr. Ignarro is sometimes known as "the father of Viagra". In addition to continuing to lead an active team of researchers in his lab at UCLA, Dr. Ignarro now focuses on communicating the benefits of enhanced nitric oxide production to the general public. His goal is to wipe out heart disease using the scientific knowledge he has created. His work proves that almost all cardiovascular disease is preventable. Louis J. Ignarro was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1941, the son of uneducated Italian immigrants. He received a B.Sc. in chemistry and pharmacy from Columbia University in 1962, a Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of Minnesota in 1966, and postdoctoral training in the Laboratory of Chemical Pharmacology at the National Institutes of Health in 1966-68. | |
| 4 | Name: | Dr. Daniel H. Janzen | | | Institution: | University of Pennsylvania; Area de Conservación Gaunacaste, Costa Rica | | | Year Elected: | 2007 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1939 | | | | | | |
Daniel Janzen is DiMaura Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and Technical Advisor to the Area de Conservación Gaunacaste in northwestern Costa Rica. While initially focused on tropical animal-plant relationships, from the early 1980's to the present, Janzen has focused on an inventory of tropical caterpillars, their parasites, and their microbial biodiversity, and on the conservation of tropical biodiversity through its non-damaging development (see ). His 428 publications encapsulate much of this information and its associated relevance for tropical science administration and conservation biology. He and his biologist wife, Winnie Hallwachs, are among the primary architects of the Area de Conservación Gaunacaste (ACG) in northwestern Costa Rica (), which was decreed a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999. Janzen received the first Crafoord Prize in biology offered xby the Swedish Royal Academy of Science (1984), the Kyoto Prize in Basic Biology (1997), and the John Scott Award of the City of Philadelphia for activities good for humankind (2003). A member of the US National Academy of Sciences (1992) and the Costa Rican National Academy of Sciences (2002), his activities have had a positive influence on society's awareness of the relevance and potential of conservation of tropical wildland biodiversity for global understanding, national sustainable development, and individual quality of life, both inside and outside the tropics. His current focus is caterpillar natural history, the combination of conservation and biodiversity development, finding the funds to endow the entire national park system of Costa Rica, and facilitating global bioliteracy through the emergence of the ability of all people to be able to identify any organism anywhere anytime through DNA barcoding. | |
| 5 | Name: | Dr. Paul A. Marks | | | Institution: | Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center | | | Year Elected: | 2007 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 204. Medicine, Surgery, Pathology and Immunology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1926 | | | Death Date: | April 28, 2020 | | | | | | |
Paul A. Marks was President Emeritus of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and a member of the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research. He was president and CEO of MSKCC from 1980-99. He received his A.B. and M.D. degrees from Columbia University and completed postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland and the Pasteur Institute, Paris. Following his period at the Pasteur, Dr. Marks returned to Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons as an assistant professor and was promoted to professor of medicine in 1967. In 1968 he was made professor of human genetics and Frode Jensen Professor of Medicine (1968-80) and the first chairman of the newly created Department of Human Genetics and Development. In 1970 he was elected Dean of the Faculty of Medicine (1970-73). In 1973 he became vice president of health sciences and director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center (1973-80) at Columbia University. In 1980 he was recruited to be the first president and CEO of the combined Memorial Hospital and Sloan-Kettering Institute. He retired from these positions in December 1999. Since January 2000 he has been a member of the Sloan-Kettering Institute, pursuing his research as head of the Laboratory of Cancer Cell Biology.
Dr. Marks published over 400 scientific articles in various scholarly journals. His research focused on the discovery and development of approaches to selectively arrest cancer cell growth. He and his colleagues identified a series of small molecules - hydroxamic acid based hybrid polar compounds - that inhibit histone deacetylases (HDAC), enzymes that play a role in regulating gene expression, cell growth, and cell death and can cause death of a variety of cancer cells, with little or no toxicity to normal cells. SAHA was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL) in October 2006. The first of these novel targeted histone deacetylase inhibitors to be approved for patient use. HDAC inhibitors represent a new approach to cancer therapy.
Dr. Marks was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He served on many governmental and non-governmental committees and boards, including the President's Commission on Three Mile Island, the President's National Cancer Advisory Board, Councils of the National Academies and the boards of several academic institutions in the USA and abroad. He received a number of honors including the Distinguished Achievement Medal of Columbia University; the Japan Foundation for the Promotion of Cancer Research Medal; the Centenary Medal of the Pasteur Institute; honorary degrees from several universities, including his alma mater, Columbia University, the John Stearns Award for Lifetime Achievement in Medicine of the New York Academy of Medicine; and the President's National Medal of Science (USA). Dr. Marks was a founder of the biotechnology company Aton Pharma, Inc. that had an exclusive license from Columbia to develop SAHA as a cancer therapeutic, which is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Merck.
Paul A. Marks was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2007. He died April 28, 2020 in New York, New York, at the age of 93. | |
| 6 | Name: | Dr. Baldomero M. Olivera | | | Institution: | University of Utah | | | Year Elected: | 2007 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1941 | | | | | | |
Baldomero (Toto) Olivera was born in Manila, studied chemistry at the University of the Philippines, and received his Ph.D. from Caltech in 1966 working with Norman Davidson on the Biophysical Chemistry of DNA. As a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University with I. R. Lehman, Olivera discovered and characterized E. coli DNA ligase, a key enzyme of replication and recombinant DNA technology. He returned to the Philippines in 1969, where he began to investigate pharmacologically-active peptides ("conotoxins") from the venoms of the predatory cone snails (Conus). Due to the unsettled political situation, he left the Philippines for the University of Utah in 1972 where he is now Distinguished Professor of Biology. There are ~100,000 different conotoxins; these have proven to be important tools for understanding ion channel and receptor function in nervous systems. Several conotoxins discovered in Olivera's lab have therapeutic applications, particularly for alleviating pain; one is an approved drug. Olivera's studies on cone snails have led to his present focus on the molecular and chemical basis of biodiversity. | |
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