Richard O. Hynes
Richard Olding Hynes (born November 29, 1944 in Nairobi , Kenya ) is a British-American molecular biologist who specializes in cell adhesion .
Life
Hynes is the son of a freshwater ecologist and a physics teacher. He studied biochemistry at Cambridge University with a bachelor's degree in 1966 and a master's degree in 1970. He received his PhD in biology in 1971 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). From 1971 to 1974 he was a Research Fellow of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London.
From 1975 he was Assistant Professor and from 1983 Professor of Biology at MIT, since 2002 as Daniel K. Ludwig Professor for Cancer Research . From 1991 to 2001 he was director of the Center for Cancer Research and Development there. From 1989 to 1991 he headed the biology faculty at MIT. He is at MIT in the Faculty of Biology and the David H. Koch Institute of Integrative Cancer Research. He has also been a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1988 and an associate member of MIT's Broad Institute since 2004.
As a researcher at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London in the early 1970s, he investigated what distinguishes the surface of cancer cells from normal cells and found the cell adhesion molecule fibronectin , which was present in normal cells but not in cancer cells. He later discovered another group of proteins that play an important role in cell adhesion, the integrins : they couple externally, for example, to the fibronectins, which form the outer matrix, and internally to parts of the cytoskeleton as well as to the signaling system the cell. He examined the role of the cell adhesion system and defects in it in cancer (and the formation of metastases and angiogenesis in cancer), in white blood cells, in which a defect in the cell attachment mechanisms that are important in defense against infection leads to inflammation, and in blood clotting, where defects in cell-cell coupling can lead to thrombosis . Selectins play a special role in blood clotting and inflammation (white blood cells) and are the subject of research in the Hynes laboratory. He investigated the consequences of genetic defects in the cell adhesion system on mouse strains in his laboratory. A frequently observed consequence was defects in angiogenesis. His laboratory also investigated which of the estimated 2,000 to 3,000 human genes (5-10% of the mammalian genome) that play a role in cell adhesion play an active role in cancer development, and identified some of these. They also study the evolutionary development of this gene system ( adhesome ).
In 1997 he received the Gairdner Foundation International Award and in 2007 the Pasarow Award . In 1982 he was a Guggenheim Fellow. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society , the National Academy of Sciences and their Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science . He was President of the American Society for Cell Biology in 2000 .
Richard O. Hynes is a British and US citizen.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Life and career data according to American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hynes, Richard O. |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Hynes, Richard Olding (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British-American molecular biologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 29, 1944 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Nairobi , Kenya |