Four Researchers Garner Annual GM Foundation Prizes

Late last month, the Detroit-based General Motors Cancer Research Foundation recognized four scientists for their investigations in the fight against cancer with its three annual awards. The cash amount of the three prizes totaled $300,000. AWARDEES: From left, Joseph F. Fraumeni, Edward E. Hartlow, Jr., GM foundation president Joseph G. Fortner, Freerick P. Li. and Norbert Brock. The Charles F. Kettering medal for outstanding contributions to the treatment of cancer was awarded to Norbert Brock, 83, former chief of the department of cancer research at ASTA-Werke, a pharmaceutical company in Bielefeld, Germany. The Charles S. Mott medal for outstanding research in cancer causation and prevention was shared by Frederick P. Li, 55, chief of the division of cancer epidemiology and control at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, and Joseph F. Fraumeni, Jr., 62, director of the epidemiology and biostatistics program at the National Cancer Institute. The Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. medal for outstanding basic science contributions to cancer research went to Edward E. Harlow, Jr., 43, American Cancer Society Research Professor at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and the department of genetics at Harvard Medical School. The medals were presented at a special conference - sponsored by the foundation - on advances in the molecular detection and prevention of cancer. The meeting took place at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. Brock and Harlow each received $100,000, while Li and Fraumeni split the third $100,000 prize. Each awardee was also presented with a gold medal. By tracing the medical histories of families with several generations of childhood cancer sufferers, Li and Fraumeni described what was to be called the Li-Fraumeni syndrome. "The syndrome," explains Fraumeni, "is a familial aggregation of a variety of cancers affecting young people, that include breast cancer, sarcomas of soft tissue and bones, brain tumors, and acute leukemia." This research, which was performed at the National Cancer Institute, was described in two seminal 1969 papers: F.P. Li, J.F. Fraumeni, Jr., "Soft-tissue sarcomas, breast cancer and other neoplasms: A familial syndrome?" Annals of Internal Medicine, 71:747-752, which has been cited in more than 330 publications to date; and F.P. Li, J.F. Fraumeni, Jr., "Rhabdomyosarcoma in children: epidemiologic study and identification of a familial cancer syndrome," Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 43:1365-73, which has been cited in more than 120 publications to date. At the time the papers were published, Fraumeni says, "it was medical dogma that familial cancer involved the same tissue type, and [this research] ran up against the tradition." Brock was recognized for his landmark work on one of the first chemotherapies. Starting in the late 1950s, he and a team of chemists at ASTA-Werke synthesized and determined the dosage regimens for such anticancer agents as Cyclophosphamide (CP) and Ifosfamide. CP is still a major component in combination chemotherapies for breast cancer, testicular cancer, childhood cancers, leukemia, and lymphoma. Over the years, Brock and his team also worked to improve the efficacy and decrease the toxicity associated with other chemotherapies. Harlow was honored for his discovery that a viral oncoprotein is directly linked to the retinoblastoma susceptibility protein (pRB). "Essentially, the virus gave us clues about how to think about the function of the retinoblastoma protein [in humans]," he explains. This finding coincides with a growing understanding of the role of pRB in human cancer. According to Harlow, the most important article describing this work is a 1988 paper entitled "Association between an oncogene and an antioncogene: The adenovirus E1A proteins bind to the retinoblastoma gene product" (P. Whyte et al., Nature, 224:124-9), which has been cited in more than 830 publications to date. Li received his M.D. from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in 1965. Fraumeni received his M.D. from Duke University School of Medicine in 1958. Brock received his M.D. from the University of Dsseldorf in 1933. Harlow received his Ph.D. from King's College, University of London, in 1982. - Karen Young Kreeger (The Scientist, Vol:9, #15, pg.18, July 24, 1995) (Copyright © The Scientist, Inc.) garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu

Four Researchers Garner Annual GM Foundation Prizes

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