Dario Carlo Altieri | |
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Occupation | Researcher |
Dario Carlo Altieri, an Italian-born physician-scientist, is the president and CEO of The Wistar Institute [1] in Philadelphia. [2] He is also the holder of the Robert and Penny Fox Distinguished Professor and the director of the National Cancer Institute-designated Ellen and Ronald Caplan Cancer Center at The Wistar Institute.
Altieri was born in Milan, Italy, where he attended the University of Milan Medical School. He trained in internal medicine with a postgraduate specialty degree in clinical and experimental hematology. In 1987, he joined the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in La Jolla, California, as a research fellow before becoming a faculty member [3] . In 1994, Altieri became an associate professor in the Department of Pathology, Boyer Center for Molecular Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine, and was promoted to full professor in 1999 [3] . In 2002, he became the founding Chair of the Department of Cancer Biology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. [1] [4]
His research has focused on Inhibitors of Apoptosis (IAP), a family of genes essential for proliferation and survival of cells. His work has identified survivin, one of these IAP genes, is over-produced in almost every human cancer, and his team is currently studying the biology of survivin and how it could be used to develop treatments for cancer. [5] [6] [7]
Altieri has also been involved in the development of gamitrinib, a Hsp90 inhibitor that was shown to disable the activity of mitochondria in cancerous cells.
In 2013, Altieri and his team received a $1.5 million grant from the United States Department of Defense to prepare the drug for human trials. [8] [9] He also co-founded the Cancer Biology Training Consortium and the Pancreatic Cancer alliance in 2005. [10]
The Wistar Institute is an independent, nonprofit research institution in biomedical science with special focuses in oncology, immunology, infectious disease and vaccine research. Located on Spruce Street in Philadelphia’s University City neighborhood, Wistar was founded in 1892 as a nonprofit institution to focus on biomedical research and training.
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Richard G. Pestell is an Australian American oncologist, endocrinologist and research scientist. Pestell was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to medicine and medical education in 2019 by Queen Elizabeth II. He was previously Executive Vice President of Thomas Jefferson University and Director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center of Thomas Jefferson University. As a serial entrepreneur he founded six biotechnology companies developing cancer therapy and diagnostics. He is currently Distinguished Professor, Translational Medical Research, and the President of the Pennsylvania Cancer and Regenerative Medicine Research Center at the Baruch S. Blumberg Institute.
Survivin, also called baculoviral inhibitor of apoptosis repeat-containing 5 or BIRC5, is a protein that, in humans, is encoded by the BIRC5 gene.
Inhibitors of apoptosis are a group of proteins that mainly act on the intrinsic pathway that block programmed cell death, which can frequently lead to cancer or other effects for the cell if mutated or improperly regulated. Many of these inhibitors act to block caspases, a family of cysteine proteases that play an integral role in apoptosis. Some of these inhibitors include the Bcl-2 family, viral inhibitor crmA, and IAP's.
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Caspase-7, apoptosis-related cysteine peptidase, also known as CASP7, is a human protein encoded by the CASP7 gene. CASP7 orthologs have been identified in nearly all mammals for which complete genome data are available. Unique orthologs are also present in birds, lizards, lissamphibians, and teleosts.
Diablo homolog (DIABLO) is a mitochondrial protein that in humans is encoded by the DIABLO gene on chromosome 12. DIABLO is also referred to as second mitochondria-derived activator of caspases or SMAC. This protein binds inhibitor of apoptosis proteins (IAPs), thus freeing caspases to activate apoptosis. Due to its proapoptotic function, SMAC is implicated in a broad spectrum of tumors, and small molecule SMAC mimetics have been developed to enhance current cancer treatments.
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Meenhard Herlyn is an American researcher who works as director of The Wistar Institute Melanoma Research in Philadelphia. Herlyn obtained his D.V.M. degree from the University of Veterinary Medicine, Hanover, in 1970. Following that, in 1976, he earned a D.Sc. in medical microbiology from the University of Munich. In 1976, he joined The Wistar Institute as an associate scientist, focusing on the emerging field of monoclonal antibodies—a groundbreaking technology that now underlies a significant portion of targeted therapeutics. Transitioning to the role of assistant professor in 1981, Herlyn established a renowned laboratory dedicated to studying melanoma biology, which remains highly regarded in the field to this day. His primary research focus is the underlying biology behind melanoma, the most aggressive form of skin cancer. Over the course of his career, he has been responsible for the use of three-dimensional artificial skin cultures to study tumor and normal cells, a clearer understanding of stem cells and how they relate to cancer, and signaling pathways related to cancer. The Wistar Melanoma (WM) cell lines that Herlyn has used and helped discover in his laboratory are responsible for a better understanding of the major steps of tumor progression in human cases of melanoma.
Russel E. Kaufman is an American researcher who is president emeritus of The Wistar Institute in Philadelphia. In addition to his administrative role at Wistar, Kaufman maintains a research program that focuses on the genetics behind various types of blood diseases and cancer. During his time in research, some of Kaufman's discoveries include the characterization of the β-globin genes and the discovery of the CD7 ligand, K12. Additionally, he has focused on the regulation of genes expressed in hematopoietic stem cells and their progenitors.
Paul M. Lieberman is an American biomedical researcher and chairperson of the Gene Expression and Regulation Program at the Ellen and Ronald Caplan Cancer Center at The Wistar Institute in Philadelphia. He is also the Hilary Koprowski, M.D., endowed professor, the McNeil professor of Molecular Medicine and Translational Research, and the founding director for the Center for Chemical Biology and Translational Medicine at The Wistar Institute. Lieberman's research focuses on how viruses cause cancer and autoimmune disease, particularly the Epstein–Barr virus.
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Tapas Kumar Kundu is an Indian molecular biologist, academician and at present the Director of Central Drug Research Institute, a prestigious research institute of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research at Lucknow. He is the head of the Transcription and Disease Laboratory of Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research. He is known for his studies on the regulation of Gene expression and his contributions in cancer diagnostics and the development of new drug candidates for cancer and AIDS therapeutics. He is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy and the National Academy of Sciences, India and a J. C. Bose National Fellow of the Department of Science and Technology. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 2005, for his contributions to biological sciences. He is also a recipient of the National Bioscience Award for Career Development of the Department of Biotechnology.
Michael Green was an American molecular biologist and cell biologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he was the chair of the Department of Molecular, Cell and Cancer Biology, director of the UMass Cancer Center, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. Green was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine.
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