General Motors Cancer Research Foundation Prizes Awarded
10 June 1998
General Motors Cancer Research Foundation Prizes Awarded Today; $750,000 Shared by Four Renowned ScientistsWASHINGTON, June 10 -- The 20th annual General Motors Cancer Research Foundation awards, international prizes for individual achievement in cancer research, were formally presented today at the Library of Congress. Recognized were four scientists whose accomplishments have contributed either to our understanding of the basic cellular biology of cancer, its cause and prevention or its diagnosis and treatment. The award is among the largest scientific prizes. The awards were presented by Jack Smith, Chairman, CEO and President of General Motors and Samuel A. Wells, Jr., M.D., president of the Foundation, in three categories: The Charles F. Kettering Medal ($250,000) for outstanding contributions to the diagnosis or treatment of cancer was awarded to H. Rodney Withers, M.D., D.Sc., of the University of California, Los Angeles. Rodney Withers demonstrated that proliferating cells, compared to nonproliferating cells, are less able to repair themselves following radiation injury. He devised the therapeutic concept of "hyperfractionation" to deliver higher total doses of radiation, over shorter intervals, to malignant solid tumors. This treatment strategy is based on the observation that tumor cells grow faster than normal cells and are thereby more vulnerable to the effects of radiation therapy. This regimen has improved patient outcomes and decreased the side effects of X-ray treatment, particularly in patients with head and neck cancer. The Charles S. Mott Medal ($250,000) for the most outstanding recent contribution related to the cause or ultimate prevention of cancer is shared by Suzanne Cory, Ph.D, and Stanley J. Korsmeyer, M.D., respectively, of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia, and of the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, St. Louis. It has generally been perceived that cancers enlarge and spread because their tumor cells have an inherent capacity to divide more rapidly than normal tissues. Drs. Cory and Korsmeyer discovered that the Bcl-2 gene codes for a protein exerts its oncogenic effects through suppression of programmed cell death or "apoptosis" rather than increased cell division. This represented a fundamentally different view of malignant transformation that has profound conceptual and practical implication, not only in cell biology but for the clinical therapy of patients with malignant disease. The Alfred P. Sloan Medal ($250,000) for the most outstanding recent contribution to basic science research related to cancer is awarded to H. Robert Horvitz, Ph.D., of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The realization that cell death is a part of normal genetically programmed developmental pathways has been one of the most important discoveries in modern cell biology. Dr. Horvitz demonstrated that programmed cell death is an active biological process that is genetically determined. His molecular genetic studies led to the identification of a large number of genes that are part of the cell death program pathway that either drives cells to die, or protects them from dying. These same genes are present in many higher species including humans. The process by which cell death is controlled has an immediate relevance to our understanding of how benign cells undergo malignant transformation, and therefore represents a highly important advance in basic cancer biology. In the research community, the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation prizes are considered highly prestigious because of the rigorous selection process and the composition of the scientists who participate on the Kettering, Mott, and Sloan Selection Committees and the Awards Assembly. Dr. Phillip Sharp, head of the Department of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology chairs the Awards Assembly. Jerzy Einhorn, M.D., former chairman of oncology, Karolinska Institute in Stockholm (the institute from which the Nobel prize originates), was a member of the Nobel Assembly for 21 years, the chair of the Nobel Assembly in 1985, and also a member of the Awards Assembly of the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation. Dr. Einhorn occupied a unique vantage point from his knowledge of cancer research and the two processes to compare the two prestigious prizes. In the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (1) he noted, "the Nobel Assembly is made up exclusively of faculty of one medical school, the Karolinska Institute (and)... while the Nobel Assembly of 50 members is made up of the top researchers drawn from the 400-member Karolinska faculty, there are also advantages to the more diversified GM Assembly, composed as it is of accomplished researchers around the world." (Lists of members of the Kettering, Mott, and Sloan Selection Committees, the Awards Assembly, and the Advisory Council of the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation are available to recognized members of the press upon request.) The selection process for the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation prizes assures extraordinary freedom to assemble a highly specialized group of scientists, to conduct detailed study of a given candidate's research accomplishments. Each Selection Committee narrows the field from several hundred nominations to 10 or 15 names. Careful study then reduces the number to six or fewer candidates. There follows an exhaustive study of each candidate's research work, primarily represented by his or her published manuscripts in peer review journals. Each selection committee presents three candidates to the Awards Assembly, which votes by secret ballot to decide the winner(s) of the individual prizes. There are no posthumous awards. This year marks the 20th Anniversary of the awards. The GM Cancer Research Foundation was established in 1978 and with today's prizes has awarded 79 scientists with more than eight million dollars in an effort to focus worldwide scientific and public attention on the progress being made in cancer research for the benefit of all. (1) Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Volume 80, Number 19, Dec. 7, 1988, pages 1519-20.