People International Society Honors Two Researchers For Breakthrough Work In Cancer Diagnostics; Roche Institute Recognizes Scientist for Protein Transport Studies

Two pioneers in the field of cancer imaging and monoclonal antibody therapy--David M. Goldenberg, president of the Garden State Cancer Center, a cancer research institution in Newark, N.J., and Jean-Pierre Mach, a professor of biochemistry in the faculty of medicine at Lausanne University, Switzerland--were honored last month with the 1994 Abbott Award. The award was presented at the 22nd meeting of the International Society for Oncodevelopmental Biology (ISOBM), held in Groningen, the Netherlands. ISOBM, currently headquartered in Freiberg, Germany, is an international scholarly society for immunologists and cancer biologists who have an interest in tumor markers. It produces a monthly research journal, Tumor Biology, published by S. Kargers Publishers Inc. of Basel, Switzerland. The annual Abbott Award was established by Abbott Park, Ill.-based Abbott Laboratories five years ago to recognize ISOBM members for their research and service to the society. Goldenberg and Mach worked independently but along parallel lines to develop a technique for detecting cancers using radioactive antibodies specific for certain molecules--called markers--present on the surface of tumor cells. Goldenberg published the clinical paper that demonstrated the use of the technique (D.M. Goldenberg et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 298:1384-8, 1978), and Mach's group followed closely with a critical evaluation of the technique, demonstrating the specificity of localization of the antibodies (J.P. Mach et al., NEJM, 303:5-10, 1980). "When we started in the 1970s it was just the two of us," Goldenberg recalls. "Today about 15,000 to 20,000 patients all over the world have been exposed to this diagnostic method." "Back then the field was not yet mature--but I've never been pessimistic," adds Mach. Over the years, both scientists continued to work on and improve the technique, incorporating advances in im-munology as well as other areas. "We are now attempting to use radiolabeled antibodies for therapy, which are giving very nice results in the case of certain lymphomas which are no longer responsive to chemotherapy," says Goldenberg. Mach was the first in the world to report the use of a monoclonal antibody in localizing a human tumor (J.P. Mach et al., Immunology Today, 2:239-49, 1981) and has also worked on immunophotodetection, a related technique using photoactive antibodies as an alternative to the more harmful radiolabeling (S. Folli et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 89:7973-7, 1992). Currently, he says, his group is working on "increasing the immunogenicity of tumors, to enlarge the field of the target recognized by the antibodies." Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Goldenberg, 56, received a bachelor's degree in science from the University of Chicago, and then went to Germany, where he received an Sc.D. from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg Faculty of Natural Sciences in 1965, and an M.D. from the University of Heidelberg School of Medicine in 1966. Returning to the United States in 1968, he taught at several universities in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Kentucky before moving to his present position in Newark. He is also an adjunct professor of microbiology and immunology at the New York Medical College in Valhalla. Mach, 59, a native of Switzerland, received a diploma in medicine from the University of Geneva in 1961. He was a clinical fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston from 1963 to 1966 and has been at Lausanne since 1967. He served on the review committee of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London, in 1985-87 and is a member of the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research. --Neeraja Sankaran James E. Rothman, chairman of the cellular biochemistry and biophysics program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and vice chairman of the Sloan-Kettering Institute in New York City, has received the 1994 V.D. Mattia Award from the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology of Nutley, N.J. The award, which includes a $10,000 cash prize, was presented to Rothman on October 13 at the Roche institute, where he also delivered a talk on his research entitled "Mechanisms of Intracellular Protein Transport." The Mattia award was established in 1972 by Hoffmann La-Roche Inc. in honor of V.D. Mattia, who served as president and CEO of the company from 1965 to 1971 and was instrumental in setting up the molecular biology institute. Nine of the 25 winners to date have gone on to receive the Nobel Prize, the most recent being 1989 chemistry Nobelist Thomas Cech of the University of Colorado, Boulder, who received the Mattia award in 1987. Rothman, whose work has led to a better understanding of transmission of signals between brain cells and mechanisms of hormone release into the bloodstream, has devoted most of his career to elucidating the methods by which proteins are transported within cells. Over the course of his investigations, which began while he was at Stanford University in the late 1970s, he has studied all the stages involved in the process. He proposed a single underlying mechanism to explain the transport of proteins via vesicles, from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and Golgi apparatus on to their final destinations in the cell. Rothman's laboratory was the first to develop a cell-free experimental system, with an intact Golgi apparatus that simulated the transport of proteins (E. Fries, J. Rothman, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 77:3870-4, 1980). He also discovered the involvement of vesicles in protein transport, and found that these vesicles have a simple protein coat that is similar in structure across evolution from yeasts to higher animals. He has studied various phases of vesicle transport in detail, from the "budding" process, whereby the coat is formed on the surface of the ER or Golgi membrane and virtually sucks out a vesicle enclosing the protein; to "docking," which enables the vesicles to recognize specific locations of the target organelle; and finally the "fusion" process, in which the vesicle releases the protein to its destination. Rothman, 43, received his Ph.D. in biological chemistry in 1976 from Harvard Medical School, Boston. He was at Stanford from 1978 to 1988 as assistant, associate, and full professor of biochemistry. He then moved to Princeton University in New Jersey, where he was a professor of molecular biology until 1991, when he came to the Sloan-Kettering Institute. Last year, he was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences.

People International Society Honors Two Researchers For Breakthrough Work In Cancer Diagnostics; Roche Institute Recognizes Scientist for Protein Transport Studies

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