Robert Weinberg
Robert Allan Weinberg is a biologist, Daniel K. Ludwig Professor for Cancer Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, director of the Ludwig Center of the MIT, and American Cancer Society Research Professor. His research is in the area of oncogenes and the genetic basis of human cancer.
Robert Weinberg is also affiliated with the Broad Institute and is a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. He teaches at MIT including course with Eric Lander. Weinberg and Lander are among the co-founders of Verastem, which is a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing drugs to treat cancer by targeting cancer stem cells.
Research
He is best known for his discoveries of the first human oncogene Ras and the first tumor suppressor gene Rbp. 371-381, which is partially documented in Natalie Angier′s book, Natural Obsessions, about her year spent in Weinberg's lab.In the late 20th century, advances in genetics led to the discovery of over one hundred cancer cell types. Cancer cells were noted for their bewildering diversity. It was hard to identify the principles that cancers had in common.
He and Douglas Hanahan wrote the seminal paper, "The Hallmarks of Cancer", published in January 2000, that gave the six requirements for one renegade cell to cause a deadly cancer: In 2011, they published an updated review article entitled "Hallmarks of cancer: the next generation".
| Capability | Simple analogy |
| Self-sufficiency in growth signals | "accelerator pedal stuck on" |
| Insensitivity to anti-growth signals | "brakes don't work" |
| Evading apoptosis | won't die when the body normally would kill the defective cell |
| Limitless replicative potential | infinite generations of descendants |
| Sustained angiogenesis | asking the body to give it a blood supply |
| Tissue invasion and metastasis | migrating and spreading to other organs and tissues |
Weinberg is well known for both his cancer research and for his mentorship of many eminent scientists, including Tyler Jacks, , Clifford Tabin and Cornelia Bargmann. He is currently studying cancer cell metastasis.
He is also the author of the textbook The Biology of Cancer published by Garland Science, as well as two important accounts intended for a wider audience: One Renegade Cell: How Cancer Begins ; and Racing to the Beginning of the Road: The Search for the Origin of Cancer.
Awards and honors
In 1985, Weinberg received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. Weinberg won the National Medal of Science and the Keio Medical Science Prize in 1997. In 1999, he received the Albert Einstein World Award of Science in recognition of his valuable and pioneering contributions in the field of Biomedical Sciences and for his productive trajectory related to the genetic and molecular basis of neoplastic disease. He obtained the Wolf Prize in Medicine in 2004, and he is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. As a member, Weinberg has gone on record to critique efforts to eject members for sexual harassment, suggesting, "it might be useful to ask whether sexual harassment by a member has anything whatsoever to do with their credibility as a scientist and the soundness of their research accomplishments—the criteria that were used to elect them in the first place." In 2007 he received an honorary doctorate degree in commemoration of Linnaeus from Uppsala University. He is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences since 1992.In the Hope Funds Award in Basic Research. In 2013 he was awarded the $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for his work.