David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA names winner of 2018 Switzer Prize

Dr. David Sabatini, an MIT biologist and associate director of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, will be the 2018 recipient of the Switzer Prize awarded by the  David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Sabatini ’s pioneering discoveries of mechanisms that regulate cell growth are propelling research into potential treatments for cancer and other diseases.As a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Sabatini identified the central protein, mTOR,  that turns cell growth on and off. At the Whitehead Institute and MIT, his laboratory ’s research uncovered both the upstream regulators that control when mTOR is active and the downstream effectors through which mTOR promotes cell growth. The identification of this critical signaling pathway central to cancer, metabolism and aging provides a rich set of targets for drug development.“In elucidating the fundamental pathway for regulating cell growth with a breadth that covers the identification of the molecular players in the pathway and a depth that provides insights into the mechanisms of how the players work, David Sabatini’s research has spurred the development of new cl asses of drugs with exciting potential to treat cancer and other diseases” said Dr. Kelsey Martin, dean of the Geffen School of Medicine.UCLA ’s medical school awards the Switzer Prize annually to a researcher whose work enhances the understanding of human physiology or biological systems. The prize is in...

Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - June 16, 2018 Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news