PHILADELPHIA Donald Metcalf, M.D., the physiologist renowned as "the father of hematopoietic cytokines" for his pioneering work on the control of blood cell formation, will receive the American Association for Cancer Research Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research.
The award will be presented on Monday, April 16, 2007 during ceremonies at the AACRs Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, Calif.
In early studies, Dr. Metcalf discovered the function of the thymus gland in controlling the formation of lymphocytes, and beginning in 1965, co-developed a series of specialized culture techniques permitting the growth of various types of blood cells. These cultures led him and his team to the discovery of "colony-stimulating factors" (CSFs), hormones that control white blood cell formation and are, therefore, responsible for one's resistance to infection. His work, with that of others, led to the successful cloning of the genes for all mouse and human CSFs, and the mass production of these hormones by bacterial, yeast, and other cells for therapeutic use.
Dr. Metcalfs work provided the pivotal demonstration that CSFs, when injected into animals, stimulated the formation and regulated the activity of white blood cells. Exploiting this, his collaborators documented the effectiveness of GM-CSF and G-CSF (two primary white blood cell regulators) when injected into patients. These blood cell regulators have been in extensive clinical use since 1988 in the management of cancer patients following the use of chemotherapy or radiation therapy. CSF treatment accelerates hematopoietic regeneration in these patients, reducing the risk of infections, usefully shortening time of hospitalization, and permitting the delivery of increased doses of chemotherapy.
Furthermore, Dr. Metcalf and his colleagues showed that CSFs could elevate the levels of hematopoietic stem cells in the blood equivalent to levels in bone marrow. Not only was pheresi
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Contact: Yarissa Ortiz
ortiz@aar.org
215-440-9300
American Association for Cancer Research
2-Apr-2007