PHILADELPHIA Samuel J. Danishefsky, Ph.D., is the recipient of the First Annual AACR-CICR Award for Outstanding Achievement in Chemistry in Cancer Research. The award honors novel and significant chemistry research which has led to important contributions to the field of cancer research. Danishefsky is the Kettering Chair and Director of the Laboratory for Bioorganic Chemistry at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and a professor of Chemistry at Columbia University.
Regarded as one of the world's leading chemists, Danishefsky specializes in the synthesis of complex, biologically active organic molecules. For more than 40 years, his work has provided major fundamental advances in the methodology and logic of organic synthesis, and offered a tremendous body of research in organic chemistry impacting both the strategy and technology of synthesis. Danishefsky's work is unique in bringing the triumphs of organic chemistry to the treatment of cancer and his research has literally moved compounds from conception through laboratory synthesis, preclinical evaluation and into clinical trials.
His modified epothilones (a new class of cytotoxic molecules) are currently in Phase I and Phase II breast cancer clinical trials. He also discovered fludelones, a remarkable class of compounds which show promise for broad therapeutic indications. Another major area of research of Danishefsky involves his advances directed to fully synthetic anticancer vaccines, which are in various stages of pre-clinical and clinical development.
Danishefsky earned his undergraduate degree from Yeshiva University and his Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard University. He is currently a Professor of Chemistry at Columbia University and the Kettering Director of Bioorganic Chemistry at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
A celebrated researcher, Danishefsky was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1986 and received its Award in Chemical
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Contact: Jennifer Ryan
ryan@aacr.org
267-646-0558
American Association for Cancer Research
3-Apr-2007