جيمس أليسون 2018

Professor James P. Allison

 

James Allison obtained his B.S. in Microbiology in 1969, followed by a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from the University of Texas (UT), Austin, TX, USA in 1973. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship in Molecular Immunology at Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation. Afterwards, he served in several reputable universities and Hospitals all over the US as a professor, a director, a chair, and a head of Molecular, Immunology, and Cancer Departments. Since 2012, he has been a Professor at the Department of Immunology at MD Anderson, the Vivian L. Smith Distinguished Chair in Immunology, the Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, the Chair of the Department of Immunology, an Executive Director of the Immunotherapy Platform, and a Deputy Director of the David H. Koch Center for Applied Research of Genitourinary Cancers at MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas in Houston.

He published over 250 highly cited articles, with over 40,796, and an H-index of 102. He is a member of the editorial board of several scientific journals and has participated in various conferences and exhibitions in his field.

Professor Allison received over 60 awards and honors including the Dana Foundation Award in Human Immunology Research, Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award and Canada Gairdner International Award.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

 

2017 -Prof. Tadamitsu Kishimoto-

Professor Tadamitsu Kishimoto


Tadamitsu Kishimoto graduated from Osaka University Medical School in 1964, and completed a one-year internship at Osaka University Hospital, and obtained his Ph.D. in medicine in 1969. Between 1970 and 1974, he pursued post-doctoral research in the Department of Medicine at Johns Hopkins Medical School, working under Professor Kimishige Ishizaka, the discoverer of IgE. He returned to Osaka University Medical School in 1974 as an assistant professor of medicine and progressed rapidly through his academic and research career becoming a full professor in 1979. He served as the dean and chairman of the Department of Medicine at Osaka University and was the university’s president from 1997-2003, and a Member of the Council for Science and Technology Policy from 2004 to 2006. Currently, he is a professor of Immunology at the Immunology Frontier Research Center in Osaka University.

Professor Kishimoto has made seminal contributions to our understanding of cytokine functions in general and interleukin-6 IL-6 in particular. He discovered and cloned IL-6, elucidated its functions, its signaling pathway, receptor system, and transcription factors. He then continued developing a humanized anti-IL 6 receptor antibody therapy ACTEMRA, Tocilizumab that has proven to be highly successful in the treatment of several immune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, Castleman’s disease, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, and other autoimmune inflammatory disorders. Kishimoto’s work has been of paramount importance in the field of pro-inflammatory cytokines and has established paradigms for the study of cytokine biology. His studies on IL-6, which spanned around thirty years, have been highly regarded, ranking him among the world’s most cited researchers. He has published around 620 papers and nearly 140 review articles.

Professor Kishimoto has received numerous prestigious awards and honors, including the Imperial Prize of the Japan Academy in 1992, the Sandoz Prize for Immunology of the International Union of Immunological Society in 1992, the Avery-Landsteiner Prize of the German Immunology in 1996, ISI Citation Laureate Award in 2000, an Honorary Doctorate Degree from the Universidad Tecnologica de Santiago, UTESA, in 2001, an Honorary Professorship at the Fourth Military Medical College, Xian, China in 2002, an Honorary Doctor of Science from Mahidol University in 2003, Robert Koch Gold Medal in 2003, a Distinguished Professorship of Medicine and Immunology, University California, Davis in 2004, an Honorary LifeTime Achievements Award from the International Cytokine Society in 2006, the Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 2009, and the Japan Prize in 2011. He was awarded the Order of Culture from the Emperor of Japan in 1998 and Royal Decoration from the Kingdom of Thailand in 2012. He was also elected as a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences 1991, a Member of the Japan Academy in 1995, and a Member of the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina in 2005.

In addition, he was elected President of the International Immunopharmacology Society, the International Cytokine Society, and the Japanese Society for Immunology. He is also an Honorary Member of the American Association of Immunologists and the American Society of Hematology. He is involved in several professional activities including being a former President of the 14th International Congress for the Society of Immunology. He is also an editor and a member of the editorial board of several international journals in his fields of specialization and selection committee member for a number of international prizes.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

2016 -Professor Joris A. Veltman-

Professor Joris A. Veltman

Joris Veltman obtained his B.S. in Molecular Sciences from Wageningen University in 1995 and his Ph.D. in Molecular Cell Biology ​​and Otorhinolaryngology from Maastricht University in 1999, followed by two post-doctoral fellowships, the first in the Department of Cancer Genetics at the Comprehensive Cancer Center of the University of California in San Francisco in 1999-2000 and the second in the Department of Human Genetics at Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center, Nijmegen, NL. He was appointed as an Assistant Professor during 2005-2008 then as an Associate Professor during 2008-2013 in the Department of Human Genetics at Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center in Nijmegen. He is currently a Professor of Translational Genomics in the Department of Medical Genetics at Radboud University, a Professor in the Department of Clinical Genetics at Maastricht University, and the Head of the Genome Research Division of the Department of Human Genetics at Radboud University.

Professor Veltman is a former member of the Scientific Program Committee for the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Genetics and its current Chairman, Director of the Next Generation Sequencing course of the European Society of Human Genetics in partnership with the European School of Genetic Medicine in Bologna, Italy, and an Associate Editor of the American Journal of Human Genetics. He also served as Chair of the Research Oversight Committee of the Genome Canada Project on Personalized Medicine and Genomics project on Epilepsy, member of the Annual Review Committee of Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative in New York and member of the review committee, Health Research Council, the Academy of Finland, Helsinki.

Professor Veltman is a distinguished molecular geneticist, who has been instrumental in the set-up, application, and implementation of genomics approaches in medical genetics. Together with Professor Henry Bruner, he developed and experimentally validated the hypothesis that a major part of intellectual disability should be due to de novo gene mutations, given the severity, early onset and genetic heterogeneity of such forms of disability. Professors Veltman and Bruner used a combination of genomic microarrays, exome and genomic sequencing approaches in their studies, and their de novo paradigm has since been validated in other neurocognitive phenotypes, autism, epileptic encephalopathies and schizophrenia. Their contribution thus represents one of the recent major breakthroughs in human genetics.

Professor Veltman’s innovative achievements have been recognized by research grants and awards from the Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and the European Union.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

2016 -Professor Henri G. Brunner-

Professor Henri G. Brunner

Henri Brunner graduated from the University of Groningen Medical School in 1984, completed his specialty training in Clinical Genetics in 1988 at Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen and was board certified in Clinical Genetics in 1988. He joined the Section of Clinical Genetics at the Institute of Human Genetics in Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center in 1988. In 1993, he earned a Ph.D. degree for his genetic studies in myotonic dystrophy. He became a full Professor of Human Genetics and the Head of the Institute of Human Genetics at Radboud University Medical Center in 1998. In 2014, he was also appointed as Chairman of the Institute of Clinical Genetics at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. From 2004 to 2008, he was also Chancellor for Human Genetics, Pediatrics, and Medical Psychology at Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center.

Professor Brunner holds or has previously held many other responsibilities nationally and internationally. He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the KNAW Hubrecht Laboratory at Utrecht, a former Chairman of the Dutch National Organization for Scientific Research Committee for VICI career development grants, a former Chairman of Quality Assurance Committee of the Dutch Clinical Genetic Society. He is a member of the Scientific Council of the Dutch Organization for Research of Neuromuscular diseases, the Core Assessment Committee for the Leiden UMC Science Review, the Board of Directors of the Dutch Society of Human Genetics, and the Medical Sciences Fellowship Committee of the Dutch National Organization for Scientific Research.

At the international level, Professor Brunner serves as President of the European Society of Human Genetics, Co-Chairman of Diagnostics of the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium, Joint Organizer of the European School of Medical Genetics. He is a Member of the Board of Directors of the American Society of Human Genetics and the Scientific Advisory Board of the Sydney Brenner Institute of Molecular Biology in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has also served as a member of the Executive Board of the European Society of Human Genetics, the Scientific Committee, Telethon, Italy, the Scientific Program Committee for the World Congress of Human Genetics, Brisbane, Australia, and the Jury for the Soderberg professorship of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He is also a member of the editorial boards of Molecular Syndromology, Clinical Genetics, and Journal of Medical Genetics, and former editorial board member of the Netherlands Journal of Medicine and Clinical Syndromology.

Professor Brunner is a distinguished molecular geneticist and a leader in the clinical delineation of a large number of rare genetic syndromes and the application of next generation sequencing technology in the clinic. Professors Brunner and Veltman and their groups carried out joint seminal studies using clinical genetic observations as the starting point for human molecular genetic investigations into such aspects as human behavior, skeletal development, brain development, neuromuscular disease, congenital malformations and gonadal development and function. Their pioneering studies, which are published in leading scientific journals have changed the lives of thousands of families worldwide and paved the way for more clinical applications of next generation genomic sequencing technology.

 

Professor Brunner’s accomplishments have been recognized by several awards including the Prize of the Dutch Organization for Research of Neuromuscular diseases, for research of myotonic dystrophy in 1994; the Ben ter Haar Prize of the Clinical Genetics Society of the Netherlands for research in the field of clinical genetics in 1995; Frank Greenberg memorial lectureship at Baylor college of medicine, Houston USA in 2009; the Radboud Science Award in 2011, and the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh Endowed Lecture, Edinburgh UK in 2012.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

2015 -Prof. Jeffrey I. Gordon-

Professor Jeffrey Ivan Gordon

Jeffery Gordon received his B.A. in Biology (Magna cum Laude) from Oberlin College in Ohio in 1969. Over the next four years, he pursued his medical training at the University of Chicago and obtained an M.D. with honors in 1973. He served for two years as an intern and a junior assistant resident in Medicine at Barnes Hospital, St Louis, MO. In 1975, he was appointed a Research Associate at the Laboratory of Biochemistry at the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. In 1978, he returned to Barnes Hospital as a Senior Assistant Resident then a Chief Medical Resident at Washington University Medical Service. In 1981, he completed a fellowship in medicine (Gastroenterology) at Washington University School of Medicine and rose through academic ranks at Washington

University in St. Louis, from an Assistant Professor of Medicine in 1981 to a full professor of Medicine, Biochemistry, and Molecular Biophysics in 1987. He became an Alumni Endowed Professor in 1991, and the Head of the Department of Molecular Biology and Pharmacology in 1991-2004.

Professor Gordon is a pioneer of interdisciplinary studies of the human microbiome, especially the intestines, and is one of the founders of a new research area, which analyzes the influence of the intestinal microbiota on postnatal development, physiology, and susceptibility to illness. He investigates the metabolic processes and their genetic bases of mutually beneficial relationships between host and microorganisms in the human gut. He developed new experimental and theoretical approaches to investigate the composition and dynamics of the human gut microbes with the aim of better understanding the pathogenesis of complex diseases and developing novel microbiome-directed therapeutics to improve health

Professor Gordon has authored and co-authored more than 440 publications, including several milestone papers in his field of specialization. His outstanding contributions have gained him wide recognition by scientific and medical communities. He is an elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. He is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His honors also include an honorary Doctorate Degree from the University of Gothenburg as well as numerous other awards including, the Janssen/AGA Sustained Achievement Award in Digestive Sciences, the Selman A. Waksman Award in Microbiology, the Robert Koch Award and the Passano Award.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

2014 -Prof. Yuk Ming Dennis Lo-

Professor Yuk Ming Dennis Lo

 

Yuk Ming Dennis Lo received his B.A. honors and preclinical medical training at the University of Cambridge in 1986, and his M.B.B.S. at the University of Oxford in 1989. Following that, he obtained a Master of Arts from Cambridge 1990, and a Doctorate of Philosophy 1994 and a Doctorate of Medicine 2001 from Oxford University. He started his academic career at Oxford as a Medical Graduate Fellow in 1990-1993, then as a Clinician Scientist Fellow in 1993-1994, followed by appointments as a University Lecturer in Clinical Biochemistry and a Fellow at Green College in 1994-1997. In 1997, he returned to Hong Kong and joined the Faculty of Medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong CUHK and progressed to full professorship in 2003. He is currently the Director of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Health Sciences, a Li Ka Shing Professor of Medicine, a Professor of Chemical Pathology, the Chairman and Chief-of-Service of the Department of Chemical Pathology at CUHK and Prince of Wales Hospital, and an Associate Dean for Research of the CUHK Faculty of Medicine.

He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh 2004, the Royal College of Pathologists, UK 2005 and the Royal College of Physicians of London 2006, an Honorary Fellow of the Hong Kong College of Pathologists 2011, and an Honorary Fellow of the Hong Kong College of Obstetrics and Gynecology 2013. He is also an Honorary Professor at Nanjing Medical University, an Honorary Professor at Sun Yat-sen University in China, a Trustee of the Croucher Foundation, Hong Kong, and a former President of the Hong Kong Society of Clinical Chemistry. He also serves in a number of academic and medical committees and councils.

Professor Dennis Lo has authored and co-authored more than 290 publications in international journals, and holds numerous patents in molecular diagnostics. His outstanding achievements have earned him numerous prestigious prizes and research awards. His prizes and honors including: State Natural Science Award from the State Council of China in 2005, the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine IFCC – Abbott Award for Outstanding Contribution to Molecular Diagnostics in 2006, the US National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry Distinguished Scientist Award in 2006, Croucher Senior Medical Research in 2006.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

2003 -Prof. Umberto Veronesi-

Professor Umberto Veronesi

 

Umberto Veronesi obtained his M.D. in 1951 from Milan University, and after brief periods in England and France, he joined the Italian National Institute for Cancer Research in Milan as a volunteer. He qualified as a Professor of Pathological Anatomy in 1957 and a Professor of Surgery in 1961 at Milan University. He served as consultant pathologist and surgeon at the Italian National Institute for Cancer Research, and was the Scientific Director of the European Institute of Oncology in Milan. He was appointed as a Minister of Health from 2000-2001. During his long and distinguished career, Professor Veronesi directed many cancer research programs and societies. He later resumed his position of the Scientific Director of the European Institute of Oncology, the President of “Science for Peace” and consultant to the Italian Supreme Health Council. In 2003, he established the Umberto Veronesi Foundation which aims to spread scientific culture and to provide free and rapid access to cancer research in Europe.

Professor Veronesi was the first to demonstrate that conservative breast surgery and radiotherapy, which leaves the breast intact, substitutes mutilating mastectomy and yet obtains the same cure rate. He invented the technique of quadrantectomy, thereby challenging the common belief among surgeons that cancers could be treated only with aggressive surgery. Since then, he has been supporting and promoting scientific research aimed to improve conservative surgical technique. He developed new research on sentinel node biopsy procedure to avoid axillary dissection when the lymph nodes are not involved. He also contributed to breast cancer prevention, conducting studies on tamoxifen and retinoids and verifying their capabilities to prevent the formation of carcinoma, and has always been an activist in many anti-tobacco campaigns.

Professor Veronesi published more than 600 papers as well as several textbooks. He served as an editor-in-chief of Surgical Oncology: A European Handbook and a co-editor of Oxford Textbook of Oncology. He was awarded many ‘honoris causa’ in Medicine and numerous prizes and medals. He was a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, an Honorary Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, an Honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Medicine at University College Dublin, and an Honorary Professor at the University of Buenos Aires. In addition, he was an elected fellow or member of several major medical and scientific societies related to cancer research, including European and American Association for Cancer Research. He was also the president of several prestigious societies including the International Union Against Cancer, the European Society of Surgical Oncology, the European Society of Mastology, the Federation of European Cancer Societies, the International Society of Cancer Chemoprevention, Breast Cancer International, and the WHO International Group for the Study of Melanoma.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

2003 -Prof. Axel Ullrich-

Professor Axel Ullrich

 

Axel Ullrich studied biochemistry at the University of Tübingen in 1971, and earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics from Heidelberg University in 1975. He then took up a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco, before joining Genentech, San Francisco, in 1979. In 1988, he became the Director of the Department of Molecular Biology of the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany, and was appointed the Administrative Director of the Institute in 1999. Throughout his remarkable career that bridges academia with the private sector, Professor Ullrich co-founded three biotechnology companies: SUNGEN Inc. (USA), U3 Pharma AG (Germany) and Axxima Pharmaceuticals AG (Germany).

Professor Ulrich’s groundbreaking research in the field of signal transduction helped significantly in elucidating major fundamental molecular mechanisms that govern the physiology of normal cells and provided insights into the pathophysiological mechanisms of major human diseases such as Diabetes and Cancer. His efforts to translate his basic scientific discoveries into medical applications led to the development of Humulin (Human Insulin for the treatment of Diabetes), the first therapeutic agent to be developed through gene-based technology, as well as Herceptin, the first target-directed, gene-based cancer therapy for the treatment of metastatic breast carcinoma and SU11248 (Pfizer) a multi-targeted drug for the treatment of GIST and Renal Cell Carcinoma. His scientific work is published in more than 450 articles in international journals, and with over 58000 citations he is one of the ten most cited scientists over the past 25 years worldwide.

Professor Ulrich received numerous awards including: Paul Langerhans Medal of the German Diabetes Society in 1987, Berthold Medal of the German Society for Endocrinology in 1988, the Antoine Lacassagne Prize of the Cancer Society of France in 1991, Gold Medal of the Lorenzini Medical Science Foundation of Italy in 1997, German Cancer Research Prize in 1998, Bruce F. Cain Memorial Award of the American Association of Cancer Research in 2000, and Robert Koch Prize in 2001. He is an Honorary Professor at the Second Military Medical University in Shanghai (China) and the University of Tübingen, and an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization and the German Academy of Natural Scientists “Leopoldina.” In 2001, he was named by Time Magazine Europe as one of 25 European tech leaders “who are changing how we work, live and play,” and was also named “International Fellow” of the Garvan Institute of Cancer Research in Sydney, Australia. He also serves on the advisory boards of several internationally renowned institutions in Europe, USA, and Asia.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.

2002 -Prof. Eugene Braunwald-

Professor Eugene Braunwald

 

Eugene Braunwald moved to the United States in 1939. He received his B.A. and M.D. (Honor) from New York University in 1949 and 1952 respectively, and completed his residency in Cardiology at Johns Hopkins University in 1958. In 1968, he joined the University of California, San Diego, where he was the founding Chair of the Department of Medicine and served as Chief of Cardiology and Clinical Director at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. From 1972 to 1996, he chaired the Department of Medicine at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, MA. He was the President of the American Society for Clinical Investigations and the Association of Professors of Medicine. He is currently Distinguished Heresy Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Faculty Dean for Academic Programs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and Academic Head of Partners in Healthcare System.

Professor Braunwald is at the forefront of investigators of congestive heart failure and acute coronary syndromes. Over the past 40 years, he conducted pioneering research on the hemodynamic response to surgical correction of valvular disorders; he also developed pioneering diagnostic techniques and discovered the clinical entity of idiopathic, hypertrophic subacute stenosis. His groundbreaking studies on the role of the autonomic nervous system and its mediators in the physiologic adjustments to heart failure and the mechanisms of contraction of the normal and failing heart had profoundly influenced present knowledge of the pathophysiology of congestive heart failure. Professor Braunwald also made seminal contributions to the treatment of heart failure, leading to large-scale clinical trials that altered treatment strategies worldwide. He was also instrumental in running the “Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction” studies, which developed the concepts of thrombosis superimposed on atherosclerosis as the pathological bases for acute myocardial infarction.

Professor Braunwald’s work dramatically expanded knowledge of heart disease in the areas of congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease, and valvular heart disease. Professor Braunwald received countless awards and honors, including eight honorary doctorate degrees. He was the recipient of the Distinguished Scientist award from the American College of Cardiology in 1986 and the Research Achievement Award of the American Heart Association in 1972. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in Britain and the American College of Chest Physicians and the only cardiologist who is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, In 1996, Harvard University incepted the Eugene Braunwald Professorship in Medicine as a permanently endowed chair, and in 1999 the American Heart Association incepted the annual Eugene Braunwald Academic Mentorship Award in his honor.

He contributed to thousands of publications. He was the founding editor of the premier cardiology textbook, Heart Disease: A Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine, and editor-in-chief of the leading textbook Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, as well as editor of two distinguished cardiovascular textbooks. He is also Editor-in-Chief of MD Consult Cardiology.

Professor Braunwald and his colleagues explored, identified, and established the role of the sympathetic nervous system in congestive heart failure. They developed a novel model in animals for congestive heart failure that has been used by many Laboratories to evaluate pathophysiologic studies and effects of therapy. Professor Braunwald was amongst the first to delineate the importance of idiopathic hypertrophic subaortic stenosis and the physiologic abnormalities of this myopathic process. He and Robert Kioner were the first to develop the concept of post- Ischaemic left ventricular dysfunction after temporary reduction and coronary flow. This key concept relating to reversible left ventricular dysfunction, its causes, consequences and opportunities for modulation remains a contemporaneously important issue.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.