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Exploring the Frontiers of Cancer Research
Seminal Leaders in Cancer Treatment will Lecture at UCSB
October 26, 2004
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) – Leading scientific innovators in cancer treatment will present free public lectures at UC Santa Barbara as part of a distinguished speaker series called "Frontiers in Cancer Research" that begins Nov. 5. Biochemist Nick Lydon, developer of the leukemia wonder drug, Gleevec, will talk about the process of discovery in "Gleevec, from Bench to Clinic," at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 5, in the Hatlen Theatre located in Snidecor Hall. Gleevec has proven highly successful in the treatment of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia and gastrointestinal stromal tumors. In recognition of Lydon's accomplishments, he shared the 2002 Charles F. Kettering Prize from the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation, the most prestigious award given for cancer research. The prominent scientists in the Frontiers in Cancer Research lecture series will also meet with students and faculty members in small colloquia to discuss their groundbreaking advances in the treatment and prevention of cancer. The series is made possible by a generous gift from the Doreen J. Putrah Foundation, with additional support from the College of Letters and Science, the College of Engineering, and the Cancer Center of Santa Barbara. The second event follows on Dec. 6 with Judah Folkman, a surgeon turned researcher and pioneer in the field of "angiogenesis" (blood vessel growth) as a key element to target in cancer treatment. It will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the Corwin Pavilion in the University Center. Tumors grow and spread by recruiting their own network of blood vessels, a process called angiogenesis. Folkman has spent over 30 years searching for ways to curb cancer by cutting off blood flow to tumors. His laboratory reported the first purified angiogenesis molecule, the first angiogenesis inhibitor, proposed the concept of angiogenic disease, and has begun clinical trials based on his research. His discoveries on the mechanism of angiogenesis have opened a field of investigation now pursued worldwide. Folkman is director of surgical research at Children's Hospital in Boston, Mass., Andrus Professor of Pediatric Surgery, and Professor of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School. The series will continue Feb. 9, 2005 with a presentation by researcher Arnold Levine, discoverer of the p53 tumor suppressor gene, which acts to protect individuals from developing cancer. Levine is a professor at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey at the Robert Wood Johnson School of Medicine. J. Michael Bishop, a physician who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for discovering that cancer genes could be derived from normal genes that had not been inherently cancer causing, will present the final lecture on April 22. Bishop is chancellor of UC San Francisco. For more information call (805) 893-5819.
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