MIT Professor Tyler E. Jacks will share the 2005 Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research awarded by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Jacks, who is the director of the Center for Cancer Research and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator, will share the $150,000 award with Scott W. Lowe of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the HHMI; and Jeff Wrana of the University of Toronto and the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute.
Jacks was cited for advancing the understanding of the pathogenesis of cancer; Lowe, for studying how genes influence the response to chemotherapy; and Wrana, for his work analyzing the impact of cell-cell communication on tumor development.
The prize, named after Paul A. Marks, president emeritus of Sloan-Kettering, recognizes significant contributions to the basic understanding and treatment of cancer by scientists no more than 45 years old at the time they are nominated. The winners were selected by a committee chaired by Jeffrey M. Friedman, a professor at Rockefeller University and an HHMI investigator.
"While still in relatively early stages of their careers, the three winners already are leaders in their respective fields of research," said Friedman. "Each has made significant contributions to our understanding of the genes, signaling pathways and processes that regulate cell proliferation and lead to the formation of tumors, their spread and their response to treatment. The selection committee is confident that these three young scientists will continue to play key roles in cancer research in the future."
This year's winners of the Paul Marks Prizes will be honored at a luncheon on Dec. 1 and will speak about their work at a public symposium held after the luncheon at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on November 16, 2005 (download PDF).
