p53, also known as Tumor protein P53, cellular tumor antigen p53, or transformation-related protein 53 (TRP53) is a regulatory protein that is often mutated in human cancers. The p53 proteins are crucial in vertebrates, where they prevent cancer formation. As such, p53 has been described as "the guardian of the genome" because of its role in conserving stability by preventing genome mutation. Hence TP53 is classified as a tumor suppressor gene.
The Medical Research Council (MRC) is responsible for co-coordinating and funding medical research in the United Kingdom. It is part of United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI), which came into operation 1 April 2018, and brings together the UK's seven research councils, Innovate UK and Research England. UK Research and Innovation is answerable to, although politically independent from, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
An oncovirus or oncogenic virus is a virus that can cause cancer. This term originated from studies of acutely transforming retroviruses in the 1950–60s, when the term oncornaviruses was used to denote their RNA virus origin. With the letters RNA removed, it now refers to any virus with a DNA or RNA genome causing cancer and is synonymous with tumor virus or cancer virus. The vast majority of human and animal viruses do not cause cancer, probably because of longstanding co-evolution between the virus and its host. Oncoviruses have been important not only in epidemiology, but also in investigations of cell cycle control mechanisms such as the retinoblastoma protein.
The Cancer Research UK London Research Institute (LRI) was a biological research facility which conducted research into the basic biology of cancer.
Karen Heather Vousden is a British medical researcher. She is known for her work on the tumour suppressor protein, p53, and in particular her discovery of the important regulatory role of Mdm2, an attractive target for anti-cancer agents. From 2003 to 2016, she was the director of the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute in Glasgow, UK, moving back to London in 2016 to take up the role of Chief Scientist at CRUK and Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute.
Inhibitor of growth protein 1 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ING1 gene.
The Sir William Dunn School of Pathology is a department within the University of Oxford. Its research programme includes the cellular and molecular biology of pathogens, the immune response, cancer and cardiovascular disease. It teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the medical sciences.
Lloyd John Old was one of the founders and standard-bearers of the field of cancer immunology. When Old began his career in 1958, tumor immunology was in its infancy. Today, cancer immunotherapies are emerging as a significant advance in cancer therapy.
Molecular oncology is an interdisciplinary medical specialty at the interface of medicinal chemistry and oncology that refers to the investigation of the chemistry of cancer and tumors at the molecular scale. Also the development and application of molecularly targeted therapies.
Bruce William Stillman is a biochemist and cancer researcher who has served as the Director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) since 1994 and President since 2003. He also served as the Director of its NCI-designated Cancer Center for 25 years from 1992 to 2016. During his leadership, CSHL has been ranked as the No. 1 institution in molecular biology and genetics research by Thomson Reuters. Stillman's research focuses on how chromosomes are duplicated in human cells and in yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae; the mechanisms that ensure accurate inheritance of genetic material from one generation to the next; and how missteps in this process lead to cancer. For his accomplishments, Stillman has received numerous awards, including the Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. Prize in 2004 and the 2010 Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize, both of which he shared with Thomas J. Kelly of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, as well as the 2019 Canada Gairdner International Award for biomedical research, which he shared with John Diffley.
Janet S Butel is the Chairman and Distinguished Service Professor in the molecular virology and microbiology department at Baylor College of Medicine. Her area of expertise is on polyomavirus pathogenesis of infections and disease. She has more than 120 publications on PubMed. She also has 6 publications in Nature, which is considered one of the most prestigious science journals. She is a member of 9 different organizations and has 13 honors and awards.
John Tooze FRS was a British research scientist, research administrator, author, science journalist, former executive director of EMBO/EMBC, director of research services at the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute and a vice president at The Rockefeller University.
Luis F. Parada is a Colombian developmental biologist and neuroscientist who currently serves as Director of the Brain Tumor Center, Albert C. Foster Chair and American Cancer Society Research Professor at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, New York.
Scott William Lowe is Chair of the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program in the Sloan Kettering Institute at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He is recognized for his research on the tumor suppressor gene, p53, which is mutated in nearly half of cancers.
Professor Carol L. Prives FRS is the Da Costa Professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia University. She is known for her work in the characterisation of p53, an important tumor suppressor protein frequently mutated in cancer.
The large tumor antigen is a protein encoded in the genomes of polyomaviruses, which are small double-stranded DNA viruses. LTag is expressed early in the infectious cycle and is essential for viral proliferation. Containing four well-conserved protein domains as well as several intrinsically disordered regions, LTag is a fairly large multifunctional protein; in most polyomaviruses, it ranges from around 600-800 amino acids in length. LTag has two primary functions, both related to replication of the viral genome: it unwinds the virus's DNA to prepare it for replication, and it interacts with proteins in the host cell to dysregulate the cell cycle so that the host's DNA replication machinery can be used to replicate the virus's genome. Some polyomavirus LTag proteins - most notably the well-studied SV40 large tumor antigen from the SV40 virus - are oncoproteins that can induce neoplastic transformation in the host cell.
Sanjeev Das is an Indian cancer biologist and a scientist at National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi, India. He is well regarded for his studies on tumor suppressor proteins. He is a recipient of the National Bioscience Award for Career Development of the Department of Biotechnology. 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, for his contributions to biological sciences in 2017.
Richard Malcolm Marais a British researcher who was Director of the Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Manchester Institute and Professor of Molecular Oncology at the University of Manchester.
Ellen Birgit Lane is a scientific researcher and academic in the field of human biology. She is the Executive Director of the Institute of Medical Biology, A*STAR, in Singapore, and the Chief Scientist of the Skin Research Institute of Singapore. Her research concerns the function of the epithelial cytoskeleton and its importance in disease.
Xiaojiang S. Chen is a Chinese-American virologist, immunologist, and structural biologist. He is a professor of Biological Sciences and Chemistry and Director of the Center of Excellence in Nano Biophysics/Structural Biology at the University of Southern California.
