TORONTO - Research that played a key role in the development of the breast cancer drug Herceptin is among four biomedical breakthroughs honoured with 2007 Gairdner Awards.
The awards for biomedical research are touted as precursor prizes for future Nobel Prize winners. Of the 283 Gairdner awardees, 68 have gone on to win a Nobel.
"The 2007 awards reflect the importance of basic discoveries that lead to a better understanding of human disease and the development of treatments and cures to alleviate them," Dr. John Dirks, president and scientific director of the Gairdner Foundation said Friday as he announced this year's winners.
They are:
-Dr. Dennis Slamon of UCLA, whose breast cancer research led to the design of Herceptin, which targets a specific genetic alteration found in about 30 per cent of breast cancer patients. The drug has changed the model for cancer treatment and is credited with saving the lives of thousands of women.
-C. David Allis of The Rockefeller University, who discovered the universal mechanisms whereby modifications in proteins called histones affect genome stability and gene transcription.
-Kim A. Nasmyth of Oxford University, who has made a series of discoveries pinpointing the novel mechanisms in cell division that are essential to life.
-Harry F. Noller of the University of California, Santa Cruz and Thomas A. Steitz of Yale University, who have identified the detailed structure and function of the ribosome, the subcellular structure in which proteins are synthesized. Their work illuminates how many antibiotics work and how new ones could be developed.
Each Gairdner winner receives $30,000 and a commemorative statue at a gala dinner that will be held this year on Oct. 25 in Toronto.
Award recipients are chosen through a rigorous two-stage arms-length process by two medical advisory committees made up of leading medical scientists from Canada and around the world.
The Gairdner Awards, founded by the late Toronto businessman, James Gairdner, are now in their 48th year. They are widely considered to be one of the most prestigious international awards for medical research, recognizing outstanding contributions by medical scientists worldwide whose work will significantly improve the quality of life.
