Winners of the 2003 Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research
Yuan Chang, MD
Yuan Chang is a Professor of Pathology in the Department of Pathology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute in Pennsylvania. She is being recognized for her work investigating the Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus, the most recently discovered virus linked to human cancers. Dr. Chang discovered the virus in 1994 and since then has continued to study the biology of it. She received her MD degree from the University of Utah College of Medicine in Salt Lake City. She was a resident at the University of California, San Francisco, and did a fellowship at Stanford University.
John F.X. Diffley, PhD
John F.X. Diffley is a Principal Scientist at Cancer Research UK London Cancer Research Institute (formerly the Imperial Cancer Research Fund). He is being honored for his work studying DNA replication - the process by which a cell copies its genetic material before it divides. Proper DNA replication is essential to maintaining the integrity of the genome, and loss of this integrity can lead to cancer. Dr. Diffley received his PhD degree in Biology from New York University. He did a postdoctoral fellowship at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, New York.
Nikola P. Pavletich, PhD
Nikola P. Pavletich is Chairman of the Structural Biology Program in the Sloan-Kettering Institute at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and leads the Laboratory of Structural Biology of Oncogenes and Tumor Suppressors. He is also an investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He has used x-ray crystallography to determine the three-dimensional structures of many proteins that play roles in the formation of cancer when they are mutated. These proteins include p53, which is implicated in nearly half of all human cancers, and BRCA2, which is linked to hereditary breast and ovarian cancers. Dr. Pavletich received his PhD degree from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He did a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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