Anita B. Roberts
Anita Bauer Roberts (born April 3, 1942 in Pittsburgh , † May 26, 2006 in Bethesda (Maryland) ) was an American biochemist and molecular biologist .
Roberts graduated from Oberlin College with a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1964 and received a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1968 . The dissertation was on the metabolism of retinoic acid . As a post-doctoral student , she was at Harvard University (Medical School, Pharmacology Department). She then went to the Aerospace Research Applications Center in Bloomington, Indiana and taught chemistry at Indiana University . From 1976 she was in the Laboratory of Chemoprevention under Michael Sporn of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Bethesda. She should be working on synthetic analogues of vitamin A there. From 1980 she started working on growth factors. In 1995 she became head of the Laboratory of Chemoprevention (later Laboratory of Cell Regulation and Carcinogenesis), which she gave up when she was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 2004, from which she died. During her illness, she wrote a daily blog about her treatment. In February 2006 she organized a conference of the American Association for Cancer Research on TGF-beta.
With Michael Sporn, she discovered the cytokine transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) and examined its role in cancer development (especially metastasis), wound healing ( fibrogen formation) and in autoimmune diseases (rheumatoid arthritis). TGF-beta and the mode of action it regulates offer points of attack for the development of new drugs.
In 2005 she received the Léopold Griffuel Prize . From 1982 to 2002 she was ranked No. 49 among the most cited scientists at ISI (and the second most cited scientist). Around 330 scientific papers are from her. With Michael Sporn she received the Komen Brinker Award for Scientific Distinction in 2005. She has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2005 .
She was president of the Wound Healing Society.
Roberts was married to Robert E. Roberts for 41 years and had two sons.
Web links
- Obituary in the Washington Times , July 22, 2006.
- Ivan Oransky, Obituary in The Lancet , Volume 338, July 1, 2006.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Roberts, Anita |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Roberts, Anita B .; Roberts, Anita Bauer |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American molecular biologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 3, 1942 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Pittsburgh |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 26, 2006 |
| Place of death | Bethesda, Maryland |