Since her groundbreaking discoveries, Dr. Horwitz has moved on to focus on the mechanisms of drug resistance, an increasingly serious problem in cancer treatment, and on to other anti-tumor agents that may be able to specifically overcome paclitaxel-drug resistance.
"Dr. Horwitz's pioneering research and critical insights into the mechanisms of action of paclitaxel more than two decades ago propelled it into clinical development by the National Cancer Institute, where it was ultimately shown to be a highly effective cancer drug that has had a profound effect on enhancing and extending the lives of thousands of cancer patients around the world," said Robert A. Kramer, Ph.D., vice president, Oncology and Immunology Discovery Biology, Bristol-Myers Squibb. "That achievement alone should have been sufficient to grant this award. Yet Dr. Horwitz has gone well beyond that research in the years since. The emergence of drug resistant cancer cells that develop after treatment with effective therapies such as paclitaxel have plagued patients and physicians, spurring researchers to study the mechanisms of cancer drug resistance in order to seek methods or agents to restore a tumor's ability to respond to chemotherapy. As one of the world's leading molecular pharmacologists, Dr. Horwitz has been in the forefront of that effort. By so doing, she is continuing to extend her research and the reach of her contributions to new frontiers and discoveries that will benefit humankind."
Dr. Horwitz received her B.A from Bryn Mawr College and her Ph.D. in biochemistry from Brandeis University. She joined the Albert Einstein College of Medicine faculty in 1968, was named assistant professor of pharmacology in 1970 and became a professor in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology in 1980 and the co-chair of that department in 1985. Dr. Horwitz was appointed Rose C. Falkenstein Professor of Can
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Contact: Karen Gardner
kgardner@aecom.yu.edu
718-430-3101
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
26-Apr-2006