Robert Allan Weinberg

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Robert Allan Weinberg (born November 11, 1942 in Pittsburgh ) is an American molecular biologist . He is Professor of Biology and Daniel K. Ludwig Professor of Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research .

His research interests focus on the molecular basis of cancer . His contributions in this area include the discovery of the first oncogene ( Ras ) and the first human tumor suppressor gene ( Rb ). This work is considered groundbreaking for cancer research , as it has fundamentally changed the understanding of the causes of cancer development.

Life

Robert Allan Weinberg was born in Pittsburgh in 1942 as the son of the dentist Fritz Weinberg and his wife Lore Reichhardt, who had emigrated from Germany to the United States four years earlier . He studied biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and received a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in 1964 and a master's degree (MA) a year later . In 1969 received his doctorate he at MIT, having in the meantime from 1965 to 1966 as a lecturer in biology at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama had worked. After receiving his doctorate, he went to Israel for two years at the Weizmann Institute for Sciences in Rechowot and then until 1972 at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla .

In 1972 he returned to MIT, where he was an assistant professor in the Department of Biology and the Center for Cancer Research. Four years later he became an associate professor . In 1981 he first described genes that are involved in the development of leukemia as well as colon and bladder cancer in humans, and was able to show that these are also present in healthy cells in a resting state or with significantly less activity . A year later he was appointed full professor of biology. He also founded the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT with other scientists in 1982 and became a lecturer at Massachusetts General Hospital . The American science magazine Discover named him Scientist of the Year in the same year .

Scientific work

Robert Allan Weinberg's research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of cancer . He primarily examines three questions: on the one hand, the migration of cancer cells into other tissues and the formation of metastases , on the other hand, mechanisms of cell aging (senescence) and cell death in cancer, and, third, the molecular basis of communication between different cells in a tumor .

Robert Allan Weinberg has published five books and more than 300 scientific articles over the course of his career , including more than 110 publications in the prestigious journals Cell , Nature , Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . His most important work is the book "The Biology of Cancer", published in 2006, which is considered the standard work in the field of tumor biology. In addition he has worked with: written and "One Renegade Cell" also books in which he the development of "Racing to the Beginning of the Road The Search for the Origin of Cancer" Cancer Research is in an understandable scientific layman form.

Awards

Robert Allan Weinberg is a member of the American National Academy of Sciences , the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , and has received many awards for his pioneering scientific achievements. In 1983 he received the Robert Koch Prize , one of the most renowned scientific prizes in Germany, along with other prizes . Various universities such as Northwestern University , the State University of New York , the City University of New York and Uppsala University have awarded him an honorary doctorate , and the American Cancer Society made him an honorary professor in 1985. In 1984 he received the Howard Taylor Ricketts Award , the National Academy of Sciences Award in Molecular Biology and the international Antonio Feltrinelli Prize , in 1987 the Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. Prize , in 1992 the Max Planck Research Award and a Gairdner Foundation International Award , in 1995 the Charles Rodolphe Brupbacher Prize for Cancer Research together with Alfred G. Knudson , the Max Delbrück Medal and the Pasarow Award in 1996 and the National Medal of Science and the Keio Medical Science Prize in 1997 . In 1999 he was accepted into the Order Pour le Mérite for Science and the Arts and awarded the Albert Einstein World Award of Science . In 2004 he received the Wolf Prize in Medicine and the Prince of Asturias Prize for Scientific and Technical Research, and in 2006 the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize . The Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology awarded him the Otto Warburg Medal in 2007, one of the most important awards in the field of biochemistry in Germany. In 2009 he received the Grande médaille de l'Académie des sciences and in 2008 the InBev-Baillet Latour Health Prize . In 2013 he was among the first to win the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences . 2016 vineyard was the AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research of the American Association for Cancer Research zugesprochen-

Works (selection)

  • Oncogenes and the Molecular Origins of Cancer. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, New York 1989, ISBN 0-87969-336-3
  • Genes and the Biology of Cancer. Scientific American Library, 1992, ISBN 0-7167-5037-6
  • Racing to the Beginning of the Road: The Search for the Origin of Cancer. Harmony, 1996, ISBN 0-517-59118-9
  • Molecular Oncology. Scientific American Introduction to Molecular Medicine Scientific American, New York 1996, ISBN 0-89454-023-8 (as Associate Editor)
  • One Renegade Cell. Basic Books, 1999, ISBN 0-465-07276-3
  • The Biology of Cancer. Garland Science, 2006, ISBN 0-8153-4078-8

literature

  • Ann Gaines, Jim Whiting: Robert Weinberg and the Search for the Cause of Cancer. Mitchell Lane Publishers, 2001, ISBN 1-58415-095-5

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Member History: Robert A. Weinberg. American Philosophical Society, accessed December 9, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Weinberg, Robert Allan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American molecular biologist
DATE OF BIRTH November 11, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania, USA