Faculty Member Joan Massagué

Joan Massagué, Chair of the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program in the Sloan-Kettering Institute, has been elected a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM). Dr. Massagué is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and a member of the National Academy of Sciences and holds an Alfred P. Sloan Chair.

A leader in the fields of both cancer biology and cell biology, Dr. Massagué has focused much of his recent work on the study of metastasis, the process by which cancer spreads from one part of the body to another. His laboratory has identified sets of genes that drive the spread of breast cancer to the bone and the lungs.

Another focus of Dr. Massagué's work is the study of transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-b), a protein that can both activate and inhibit cell growth.

Dr. Massagué earned his PhD from the University of Barcelona and completed his postdoctoral fellowship at Brown University. He joined Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 1989.

The IOM is a branch of the National Academies and was established to honor professional achievement in the health sciences and to serve as a national resource for recommendations on issues related to medicine, biomedical sciences, and health. Ten members of Memorial Sloan-Kettering's staff already are IOM members.