General Motors Cancer Research Foundation Prizes Awarded
10 June 1998
General Motors Cancer Research Foundation Prizes Awarded Today; $750,000 Shared by Four Renowned Scientists WASHINGTON, June 10 -- The 20th annual General Motors Cancer
Research Foundation awards, international prizes for individual achievement in
cancer research, were formally presented today at the Library of Congress.
Recognized were four scientists whose accomplishments have contributed
either to our understanding of the basic cellular biology of cancer, its cause
and prevention or its diagnosis and treatment. The award is among the largest
scientific prizes.
The awards were presented by Jack Smith, Chairman, CEO and President of
General Motors and Samuel A. Wells, Jr., M.D., president of the Foundation, in
three categories:
The Charles F. Kettering Medal ($250,000) for outstanding contributions to
the diagnosis or treatment of cancer was awarded to H. Rodney Withers, M.D.,
D.Sc., of the University of California, Los Angeles.
Rodney Withers demonstrated that proliferating cells, compared to
nonproliferating cells, are less able to repair themselves following radiation
injury. He devised the therapeutic concept of "hyperfractionation" to deliver
higher total doses of radiation, over shorter intervals, to malignant solid
tumors. This treatment strategy is based on the observation that tumor cells
grow faster than normal cells and are thereby more vulnerable to the effects
of radiation therapy. This regimen has improved patient outcomes and
decreased the side effects of X-ray treatment, particularly in patients with
head and neck cancer.
The Charles S. Mott Medal ($250,000) for the most outstanding recent
contribution related to the cause or ultimate prevention of cancer is shared
by Suzanne Cory, Ph.D, and Stanley J. Korsmeyer, M.D., respectively, of the
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia,
and of the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, and the Howard
Hughes Medical Institute, St. Louis.
It has generally been perceived that cancers enlarge and spread because
their tumor cells have an inherent capacity to divide more rapidly than normal
tissues. Drs. Cory and Korsmeyer discovered that the Bcl-2 gene codes for a
protein exerts its oncogenic effects through suppression of programmed cell
death or "apoptosis" rather than increased cell division. This represented a
fundamentally different view of malignant transformation that has profound
conceptual and practical implication, not only in cell biology but for the
clinical therapy of patients with malignant disease.
The Alfred P. Sloan Medal ($250,000) for the most outstanding recent
contribution to basic science research related to cancer is awarded to H.
Robert Horvitz, Ph.D., of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
The realization that cell death is a part of normal genetically programmed
developmental pathways has been one of the most important discoveries in
modern cell biology. Dr. Horvitz demonstrated that programmed cell death is
an active biological process that is genetically determined. His molecular
genetic studies led to the identification of a large number of genes that are
part of the cell death program pathway that either drives cells to die, or
protects them from dying. These same genes are present in many higher species
including humans. The process by which cell death is controlled has an
immediate relevance to our understanding of how benign cells undergo malignant
transformation, and therefore represents a highly important advance in basic
cancer biology.
In the research community, the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation
prizes are considered highly prestigious because of the rigorous selection
process and the composition of the scientists who participate on the
Kettering, Mott, and Sloan Selection Committees and the Awards Assembly. Dr.
Phillip Sharp, head of the Department of Biology at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology chairs the Awards Assembly.
Jerzy Einhorn, M.D., former chairman of oncology, Karolinska Institute in
Stockholm (the institute from which the Nobel prize originates), was a member
of the Nobel Assembly for 21 years, the chair of the Nobel Assembly in 1985,
and also a member of the Awards Assembly of the General Motors Cancer Research
Foundation. Dr. Einhorn occupied a unique vantage point from his knowledge of
cancer research and the two processes to compare the two prestigious prizes.
In the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (1) he noted, "the Nobel
Assembly is made up exclusively of faculty of one medical school, the
Karolinska Institute (and)... while the Nobel Assembly of 50 members is made
up of the top researchers drawn from the 400-member Karolinska faculty, there
are also advantages to the more diversified GM Assembly, composed as it is of
accomplished researchers around the world." (Lists of members of the
Kettering, Mott, and Sloan Selection Committees, the Awards Assembly, and the
Advisory Council of the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation are
available to recognized members of the press upon request.)
The selection process for the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation
prizes assures extraordinary freedom to assemble a highly specialized group of
scientists, to conduct detailed study of a given candidate's research
accomplishments. Each Selection Committee narrows the field from several
hundred nominations to 10 or 15 names. Careful study then reduces the number
to six or fewer candidates. There follows an exhaustive study of each
candidate's research work, primarily represented by his or her published
manuscripts in peer review journals. Each selection committee presents three
candidates to the Awards Assembly, which votes by secret ballot to decide the
winner(s) of the individual prizes. There are no posthumous awards.
This year marks the 20th Anniversary of the awards. The GM Cancer Research
Foundation was established in 1978 and with today's prizes has awarded 79
scientists with more than eight million dollars in an effort to focus
worldwide scientific and public attention on the progress being made in cancer
research for the benefit of all.
(1) Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Volume 80, Number 19,
Dec. 7, 1988, pages 1519-20.
