Irving Weissman

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Irving Weissman
Born(1939-10-21)October 21, 1939
Alma mater
Scientific career
Institutions

Irving Lerner "Irv" Weissman (born Great Falls, Montana, October 21, 1939) [1] is a Professor of Pathology and Developmental Biology at Stanford University [2] where he is the Director of the Stanford Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine along with Michael Longaker.

Contents

Weissman was raised in Great Falls, Montana and started his scientific career at the McLaughlin Research Institute there. He obtained his MD from Stanford University in 1965 after earning a BS from Montana State University in 1961. His research has since focused on hematopoietic stem cell biology.

Early life

Weissman was not an exceptionally good student in high school. [3] He started assisting with medical research in 1956, when he got a summer job at Montana Deaconess Hospital. He preferred the idea of caring for laboratory mice and assisting in the lab to washing cars or similar jobs that were available to teenaged boys in the area. He was inspired by the idea that he could think scientifically and respond to a questioning, Socratic method, rather than didactic lectures about scientific facts. He ran his first experiment there during his senior year in high school, to see whether he could repeat an experiment that had recently been published. He attributes his admission to college and medical school to the resulting publications, rather than to his less-than-perfect grades. [3]

Awards

His awards include election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1989, named California Scientist of the Year in 2002, [4] and elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2008. [5]

Research focus

He developed methods to identify stem cells, and has extensively researched stem cells and progenitor cells. [8] His research focus is "the phylogeny and developmental biology of the cells that make up the blood-forming and immune system." [2] Weissman is widely recognized as the "father of hematopoiesis" since he was the first to purify blood forming stem cells in both mice and humans. His laboratory purified stem cells from other mature cells, such as B cells, by observing the different lineage markers expressed by each immune cell type. So when the immune cells of mice reacted with fluorescently labeled antibodies specific to effector cells, the mature cells were differentiated from the newly forming stem cells. [9] His work has contributed to the understanding of how a single hematopoietic stem cell can give rise to specialized blood cells.

Weissman is also a leading expert in the field of cancer stem cell biology, where his work sheds light on the understanding of the pathogenesis of multiple human malignancies. He is also known for transgenic research in which human brain cells are grown in the brains of mice.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haematopoiesis</span> Formation of blood cellular components

Haematopoiesis is the formation of blood cellular components. All cellular blood components are derived from haematopoietic stem cells. In a healthy adult person, approximately 1011–1012 new blood cells are produced daily in order to maintain steady state levels in the peripheral circulation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CD34</span> Cluster of differentiation protocol that identifies cell surface antigens.

CD34 is a transmembrane phosphoglycoprotein protein encoded by the CD34 gene in humans, mice, rats and other species.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monoblast</span>

Monoblasts are the committed progenitor cells that differentiated from a committed macrophage or dendritic cell precursor (MDP) in the process of hematopoiesis. They are the first developmental stage in the monocyte series leading to a macrophage. Their myeloid cell fate is induced by the concentration of cytokines they are surrounded by during development. These cytokines induce the activation of transcription factors which push completion of the monoblast's myeloid cell fate. Monoblasts are normally found in bone marrow and do not appear in the normal peripheral blood. They mature into monocytes which, in turn, develop into macrophages. They then are seen as macrophages in the normal peripheral blood and many different tissues of the body. Macrophages can produce a variety of effector molecules that initiate local, systemic inflammatory responses. These monoblast differentiated cells are equipped to fight off foreign invaders using pattern recognition receptors to detect antigen as part of the innate immune response.

Lymphopoiesis (lĭm'fō-poi-ē'sĭs) is the generation of lymphocytes, which are one of the five types of white blood cells (WBCs). It is more formally known as lymphoid hematopoiesis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Edgar Dick</span> Canadian cancer researcher

John Edgar Dick is Canada Research Chair in Stem Cell Biology, Senior Scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network and Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto in Canada. Dick is credited with first identifying cancer stem cells in certain types of human leukemia. His revolutionary findings highlighted the importance of understanding that not all cancer cells are the same and thus spawned a new direction in cancer research. Dick is also known for his demonstration of a blood stem cell's ability to replenish the blood system of a mouse, his development of a technique to enable an immune-deficient mouse to carry and produce human blood, and his creation of the world's first mouse with human leukemia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Klaus Rajewsky</span>

Klaus Rajewsky is a German immunologist, renowned for his work on B cells.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ralph M. Steinman</span> Canadian immunologist and cell biologist

Ralph Marvin Steinman was a Canadian physician and medical researcher at Rockefeller University, who in 1973 discovered and named dendritic cells while working as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Zanvil A. Cohn, also at Rockefeller University. Steinman was one of the recipients of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sean J. Morrison</span>

Sean J. Morrison is a Canadian-American stem cell biologist and cancer researcher. Morrison is the director of Children's Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern, a nonprofit research institute established in 2011 as a joint venture between Children’s Health System of Texas and UT Southwestern Medical Center. The CRI was established in 2011 by Morrison with the mission to perform transformative biomedical research at the interface of stem cell biology, cancer, and metabolism to better understand the biological basis of disease. He is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and member of the National Academy of Medicine. From 2015 to 2016 Morrison served as the president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Peter Gale</span> American physician and medical researcher

Robert Peter Gale is an American physician and medical researcher. He is known for research in leukemia and other bone marrow disorders.

KSL cells in cell biology are an early form of mouse/murine hematopoietic stem cells. Characteristics are Kit (+), Sca-1 (+) and Lin (-). HSCs [Hematopoietic stem cells] in murine cultures show phenotypic markers as being CD34-, CD150+, and Flt3- for LTR [long-term reconstitution]. These phenotypic markers are used when purifying hematopoitic stem cells from the many other differentiated cells in the bone marrow.

The NSG mouse is a brand of immunodeficient laboratory mice, developed and marketed by Jackson Laboratory, which carries the strain NOD.Cg-Prkdcscid Il2rgtm1Wjl/SzJ. NSG branded mice are among the most immunodeficient described to date. NSG branded mice lack mature T cells, B cells, and natural killer (NK) cells. NSG branded mice are also deficient in multiple cytokine signaling pathways, and they have many defects in innate immunity. The compound immunodeficiencies in NSG branded mice permit the engraftment of a wide range of primary human cells, and enable sophisticated modeling of many areas of human biology and disease. NSG branded mice were developed in the laboratory of Dr. Leonard Shultz at Jackson Laboratory, which owns the NSG trade mark.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert D. Schreiber</span> American immunologist

Robert D. Schreiber is an immunologist and currently is the Alumni Endowed Professor of Pathology and Immunology at Washington University School of Medicine. Schreiber has led a major revision in our understanding of how the immune system interacts with cancer. His work on the cancer immunoediting hypothesis has helped reveal that the immune system is not only capable of destroying cancers, but can also drive them into a dormant state that, in some cases, results in an improved state of malignancy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haematopoietic system</span>

The haematopoietic system is the system in the body involved in the creation of the cells of blood.

Amy J. Wagers is the Forst Family Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University and Harvard Medical School, an investigator in islet cell and regenerative biology at the Joslin Diabetes Center, and principal faculty of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. She is co-chair of the Department of Stem Cells and Regenerative Biology at Harvard Medical School.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stefan Karlsson (professor)</span>

Stefan Karlsson, M.D. Ph.D. is a Professor of Molecular Medicine and Gene Therapy at the Lund Stem Cell Center, in the Department of Laboratory Medicine, Lund University, Sweden. He is recognized for significant contributions to the fields of gene therapy and hematopoietic stem cell biology and in 2009 was awarded the Tobias Prize by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Juan Carlos Zúñiga-Pflücker is an American-Canadian immunologist, currently a Canada Research Chair at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on the signaling processes that occur during the differentiation of cells in the immune system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Derrick Rossi</span> Canadian stem cell biologist

Derrick J. Rossi, is a Canadian stem cell biologist and entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of the biotechnology company Moderna.

Since haematopoietic stem cells cannot be isolated as a pure population, it is not possible to identify them in a microscope. Therefore, there are many techniques to isolate haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). HSCs can be identified or isolated by the use of flow cytometry where the combination of several different cell surface markers are used to separate the rare HSCs from the surrounding blood cells. HSCs lack expression of mature blood cell markers and are thus, called Lin-. Lack of expression of lineage markers is used in combination with detection of several positive cell-surface markers to isolate HSCs. In addition, HSCs are characterised by their small size and low staining with vital dyes such as rhodamine 123 or Hoechst 33342.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drew Weissman</span> American physician-scientist

Drew Weissman is an American physician-scientist best known for his contributions to RNA biology. His work helped enable development of mRNA vaccines, the best known of which are those for COVID-19 produced by BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna. Weissman is the inaugural Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research, Director of the Penn Institute for RNA Innovation, and professor of medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). He and his research colleague Katalin Karikó have received numerous awards including the presigious Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award.

Maria Grazia Roncarolo is an Italian pediatrician who is currently George D. Smith Professor in Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine and Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. She is also the Director of the Stanford Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine along with Irving Weissman and Michael Longaker and the Director for Center for Definitive and Curative Medicine at Stanford.

References

  1. Weissman, Irving L., American Men and Women of Science, Eds. Pamela Kalte, Katherine Nemeh and Noah Schusterbauer, Vol. 7, 22nd Ed. Detroit: Gale, 2005, p552-553. Gale Document Number: CX3454833983. Retrieved November 8, 2010
  2. 1 2 "Faculty & Researcher Profiles - Irving Weissman". Stanford University Medical Center. Archived from the original on January 4, 2011. Retrieved August 27, 2011.
  3. 1 2 Weissman, Irving (2016-01-01). "How One Thing Led to Another". Annual Review of Immunology. 34 (1): 1–30. doi: 10.1146/annurev-immunol-032414-112003 . PMID   27168238.
  4. "Irving Weissman, M.D. 2002 California Scientist of the Year". Archived from the original on 2011-05-22. Retrieved 2008-06-09.
  5. "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2021-05-03.
  6. "Brupbacher Preis – Charles Rodolphe Brupbacher Stiftung". Archived from the original on 2018-10-23. Retrieved 2018-10-23.
  7. Albany Medical Center Prize
  8. "Biography Format for Board of Trustees' Agenda: A brief introduction of Irving L. Weissman, M.D." Retrieved November 8, 2010
  9. Jones, Judith A. Owen, Jenni Punt, Sharon A. Stranford; with contributions by Patricia P. (2013). Kuby immunology (Seventh ed.). New York: W.H. Freeman. p. 31. ISBN   9781429219198.