Alexander Varshavsky
Alexander Jacob Varshavsky (Template:Lang-ru; born 8 November 1946) is a Russian-American biochemist, noted for his discovery of the N-end rule of ubiquitination. A native of Moscow,[1] he is currently researching at Caltech.
Varshavsky provided an original approach to killing cancer cells, proffering the idea of a targeted molecular device that could enter a cell, examine it for DNA deletions specific to cancer and killing it if it meets the right profile. "(It) involves, in a nutshell, the finding of a genuine Achilles' heel of cancer cells, i.e. their potentially vulnerable feature that won't change during tumor progression," said Varshavsky.
The approach termed deletion-specific targeting (DST), employs HDs (homozygous DNA deletions) as the targets of cancer therapy. "In contrast to other attributes of cancer cells, their HDs are immutable markers. If the DST strategy can be implemented in a clinical setting, it may prove to be both curative and free of side effects."
Awards
Recipient of the Gairdner Foundation International Award [2] in 1999, Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research [3] in 2000, the Wolf Prize in Medicine,[4] the Massry Prize from the Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California in 2001, and the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize [5] from Columbia University in 2001 for his research on ubiquitination.
In 2006 he won the March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology, and he won the 2007 $1 million Gotham Prize for an original approach to killing cancer cells.
In 2010, he received the Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science.[6] The following year, he received the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award of Biomedicine for his discovery of the mechanisms intervening in protein degradation and their importance in biological systems. His work has implications for the understanding of cancer and immunological and neurodegenerative diseases.
In 2014 he was awarded the $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for his work [7] and also the Albany Medical Center Prize.[8]
References
- ^ Who's who in the West: A Biographical Dictionary of Noteworthy Men and Women of the Pacific Coast and the Western States. 2001. ISBN 9780837909325.
- ^ Gairdner Award
- ^ Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research Archived 2015-03-30 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Wolf Prize in Medicine
- ^ Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize
- ^ "ASBMB News". www.asbmb.org. Retrieved 2015-11-11.
- ^ Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences 2014
- ^ Albany Medical Center Prize 2014
Notes
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| National | |
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- Living people
- American biochemists
- American people of Russian descent
- Wolf Prize in Medicine laureates
- American medical researchers
- Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
- Recipients of the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research
- 1946 births
- Massry Prize recipients
- Schleiden Medal recipients
- American biochemist stubs