The international prizes, offered by the Kirk A. and Dorothy P. Landon Foundation and the American Association for Cancer Research, are the largest offered to cancer researchers from a professional society of their peers. Each recipient receives an unrestricted cash award of $200,000 and presents a scientific lecture at the AACR Annual Meeting, held this year from April 5-9 in Toronto, Canada.

This year's winners are:

*Charles J. Sherr, M.D., Ph.D., a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator based at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, who has been awarded the Kirk A. Landon-AACR Prize for Basic Research; and

*Dennis J. Slamon, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Revlon/UCLA Women's Cancer Research Program at UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center in Los Angeles, Calif., who has been awarded the Dorothy P. Landon-AACR Prize for Translational Cancer Research.

"We are proud that these two scientists who have made such tremendous contributions to our understanding of cancer are being honored this year with the Landon-AACR Prizes," said Margaret Foti, Ph.D., AACR's chief executive officer. "Their exciting work underscores the importance of basic and translational research in accelerating progress against cancer and in bringing its benefits to patients."

Dr. Sherr, Herrick Foundation Chair with the Department of Genetics & Tumor Cell Biology at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, is being honored for his significant contributions to the understanding of mechanisms of cell growth control and neoplastic transformation, particularly as they relate to the mammalian cell division cycle. His seminal research ultimately led to the discoveries of two m
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Contact: Warren Froelich
froelich@aacr.org
215-440-9300
American Association for Cancer Research
13-Mar-2003