PEBC Report - Programa de Epigenética y Biología del Cáncer

SPEAKERS BIOGRAPHY AND ABSTRACT
Pier Paolo Pandolfi
Pier Paolo Pandolfi received his MD
in 1989 and his PhD in 1996 from
the University of Perugia, Italy, after
having studied Philosophy at the
University of Rome, Italy. He
received post-graduate training at
the National Institute for Medical
Research and the University of
London in the UK. He became an
Assistant Member of the Molecular
Biology Program and the Department of Human Genetics at
Memorial-Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 1994. Dr.
Pandolfi grew through the ranks to become a Member in the
Cancer Biology and Genetics Program at the Sloan
Kettering Institute; Professor of Molecular Biology and
Human Genetics at the Weill Graduate School of Medical
Sciences at Cornell University; Professor, Molecular Biology
in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Medical
College at Cornell University; and Head of the Molecular and
Developmental Biology Laboratories at MSKCC. Dr.
Pandolfi was also the incumbent of the Albert C. Foster
Endowed Chair for Cancer Research at Memorial Sloan-
Kettering Cancer Center.
Dr. Pandolfi presently holds the Reisman Endowed Chair
of Medicine, and is Professor of Pathology at Harvard
Medical School. He serves as the Director of Research,
Beth Israel Deaconess Cancer Center; Director, Cancer
Genetics Program; and Chief, Division of Genetics in the
Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical
Center, and is a Member of the Department of Pathology,
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Dr. Pandolfi has been the recipient of numerous awards
including the LLSA Scholar Award (1997), the Irma T.
Hirschl Trust Award (1999), the Alexandra J. Kefalides
Prize for Leukemia Research (1999), the Hamdan Award
for Medical Research Excellence (2000), the Lombroso
Prize for Cancer Research of the Weizmann Institute of
Science (2001), the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s
Stohlman Scholar Award (2001); the William and Linda
Steere Foundation Award (2004) and the prize for
Scientific Excellence in Medicine from the American-Italian
Cancer Foundation (2005). He also has recently been
awarded the NIH MERIT Award for superior competence
and outstanding productivity in research and the
Fondazione Cortese International Award.
In 2006 Dr. Pandolfi was elected as a member of the
American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and the
American Association of Physicians (AAP), and in 2007 as
Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization
(EMBO).
The research carried out in Dr. Pandolfi’s laboratory has
been seminal to elucidating the molecular mechanisms
and the genetics underlying the pathogenesis of
leukemias, lymphomas and solid tumors as well as in
modeling these cancers in the mouse. Dr. Pandolfi and
colleagues have characterized the function of the fusion
oncoproteins and the genes involved in the chromosomal
translocations of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), as
well as of major tumor suppressors such as PTEN and
p53, and novel proto-oncogenes such as POKEMON.
The elucidation of the molecular basis underlying APL
pathogenesis has led to the development of novel and
effective therapeutic strategies. As a result of these
efforts, APL is now considered a curable disease.
Additional novel therapeutic concepts have emerged from
this work and are currently being tested in clinical trials.
Cancer Genetics Program, Beth Israel Deaconess
Cancer Center, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School,
Boston, USA
Targeting the cancer initiating cell for therapy
Failure to eradicate the cancer-initiating cell (CIC) and,
specifically, the quiescent CIC population is at the core of
disease relapse upon conventional and targeted therapies.
We will discuss here how the elucidation of a novel
PTEN/PI3K signaling regulatory network for the control of
stem cell-ness has allowed us to propose and experimentally
test novel concepts for CIC eradication of immediate
therapeutic applicability.
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