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Dr. Joseph Schlessinger of NYU School of Medicine Is Elected to the National Academy of Sciences
New York, May 2, 2000 -- Joseph Schlessinger, Ph.D., Director of the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine and the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Professor of Cell Biology at New York University School of Medicine, was today elected a member of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences in recognition of his distinguished and continuing achievements in research.
Dr. Schlessinger, who is also the Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Professor and Chairman of Pharmacology at the School of Medicine, is a leading biomedical scientist and one of the most frequently referenced authors in biomedical science. Election to the National Academy of Sciences is considered one of the highest honors that can be bestowed on a scientist. He joins an eminent group of 1,843 scientists who are members of the National Academy of Sciences, including 60 who were elected today at the Academy's annual meeting. Dr. Schlessinger joins three other NYU School of Medicine faculty in this honor, Sherwood H. Lawrence, Rodolfo R. Llinas, and David D. Sabatini.
Dr. Schlessinger is an acknowledged leader in the field of cell signaling-the mechanism whereby a cell relays messages from its surface and its inner environment to its nucleus, or "brain," including signals that tell it to divide, normally or, as in the case of cancer, uncontrollably. His research over the last three decades has helped to overturn once-reigning paradigms of cellular growth and specialization and set the stage for a far more nuanced understanding of the mechanisms leading to cancer and other diseases.
Among Dr. Schlessinger's seminal contributions is a model he devised to explain how growth factors deliver their messages to a cell's nucleus. In the early 1980s, he found that in order for the delivery to occur, growth factors had to bind to receptor proteins spanning the cellular membrane, and these proteins, called receptor tyrosine kinases, have to join together in pairs on the cell's surface, a process known as dimerization. Receptor tyrosine kinases play a vital role in many biological processes; growth factors must bring together or dimerize a particular part of these tyrosine kinases to initiate the signaling pathway that leads to the nucleus.
In subsequent studies, Dr. Schlessinger explored how regulation of cell signaling occurred through protein interactions and receptor tyrosine kinases. His laboratory also identified certain signaling molecules that a cell uses to relay messages to its nucleus, including Grb2 (the acronym for growth receptor binding protein 2), which is the main relay station between receptor tyrosine kinases and Ras, an oncogene implicated in a broad array of cancers. In 1993 a series of landmark papers by Dr. Schlessinger and colleagues described the link between Grb2 and the Ras signaling pathway. In the following years, his laboratory vigorously employed biophysical studies to describe the binding properties of receptor tyrosine kinases and other signaling molecules.
Today, many potential anti-cancer therapies are in development that block cell-signaling pathways inside cells that lead to the proliferation of cells. Dr. Schlessinger's work has laid the foundations for much of this work, placing him among the rare researchers whose contributions have a wide-ranging impact on both basic science and clinical medicine.
The Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine at New York University School of Medicine was established in 1993 with a $15 million gift from the Skirball Foundation. The Institute represents the core of the School of Medicine's commitment to investigating and conquering disease at the cellular level. With 60,000 square feet of modern laboratories organized in multidisciplinary teams, the $200 million-project was the single largest construction of a new facility ever undertaken by NYU to date. Since the Institute opened, its scientists have contributed to a number of significant advances in the understanding of virology (specifically, of the HIV virus, hepatitis B), developmental biology and aging-areas of investigation in which the NYU faculty have an impressive tradition of leadership.
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