Karen Vousden

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Karen Heather Vousden , CBE (born July 19, 1957 in Gravesend ) is a British cancer researcher . She has been the Scientific Director of Cancer Research UK since July 2016 .

Career

Karen Vousden studied at Queen Mary College , where she received her Bachelor of Science degree in 1978 before obtaining a Ph.D. in 1982 in genetics. received his doctorate . She worked as a post-doc at the Institute of Cancer Research in London until 1985 before doing a two-year research stay at the National Cancer Institute of the United States in Bethesda , Maryland . She then returned to London, where she headed the “ Human Papilloma Viruses ” working group at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research until 1995 . In 1995 Vousden moved again to the National Cancer Institute and held several senior positions at the Frederick , Maryland site until 2002. From 2002 to 2016 she was director of the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow , which also included a professorship at the University of Glasgow . In July 2016, she was introduced as the new Scientific Director of Cancer Research UK , the UK's premier cancer research institution. Vousden will start research at the Francis Crick Institute in London in 2017 .

Scientific work

Apart from her early occupation with human papilloma viruses and their oncogenes , Vousden mainly deals with the tumor suppressor p53 , in particular with its functioning, its regulation and the signaling pathways required. She discovered the p53 Upregulated Modulator of Apoptosis (PUMA), the expression of which is regulated by p53 and which is responsible for mediating apoptosis . They also described the protein MDM2 (mouse double minute 2 homolog) , especially like this as ubiquitin - ligase p53 for proteasome marked so as to regulate the p53 level in the cell. Another protein discovered by her research group that is also involved in p53 regulation is TIGAR (TP53-Inducible Glycolysis and Apoptosis Regulator) .

Vousden has also served as the co-editor of a number of journals, including Cancer Cell , Oncogene , Carcinogenesis , and The EMBO Journal .

Honors

In 2003 Vousden was elected to the Royal Society , as well as a year later to the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). She received honorary doctorates from the University of London (2006) and the University of Strathclyde (2008) and was also named Commander of the British Empire in 2010. In addition, she was elected to the Academia Europaea and the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2013, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016 and the National Academy of Sciences in 2018 .

Web links

  • Profile on Cancer Research UK site
  • CV on the Academia Europaea website

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Top US scientist joins the Beatson Expert hopes to start reverse brain drain. heraldscotland.com, March 16, 2002, accessed December 19, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Nick Peel: Expert opinion: Professor Karen Vousden, our new chief scientist. cancerresearchuk.org, July 27, 2016, accessed December 20, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Vousden, Karen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vousden, Karen Heather (full name); Vousden, Karen H.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British cancer researcher
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1957
PLACE OF BIRTH Gravesend , England