Kenneth Offit

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Kenneth Offit
Kenneth Offit speaks at 2018 National Academy of Medicine Annual Meeting.jpg
Born
Kenneth Offit

(1955-02-19) February 19, 1955 (age 69)
New York, New York,
United States
Alma mater Princeton University
Harvard Medical School
Harvard School of Public Health
Known forBRCA2 Research
Spouse
Emily Sonnenblick
​
(m. 1984)​
AwardsAmerican Society of Clinical Oncology-American Cancer Society Award (2013)
Scientific career
FieldsCancer Genetics, Oncology, Medical Research
Institutions Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Kenneth Offit (born February 19, 1955) is an American cancer geneticist and oncologist known for his discoveries with respect to the genetic bases of breast, colorectal, and lymphoid cancers. [1] He is currently Chief of the Clinical Genetics Service and the Robert and Kate Niehaus Chair in Inherited Cancer Genomics at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. [2] Offit is also a member of the Program in Cancer Biology and Genetics at the Sloan-Kettering Institute and Professor of Medicine and Healthcare Policy and Research at Weill Cornell Medical College. [3] He was previously a member of both the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Cancer Institute [4] and the Evaluation of Genomic Applications in Practice and Prevention working group of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. [5]

Contents

Offit has garnered numerous honors for his contributions to the prevention and management of cancer. In 2013, he was selected for the American Society of Clinical Oncology-American Cancer Society Award and Lecture. [6] [7] In 2016, he was elected as a Member of the National Academy of Medicine [1] and appointed to the Roundtable on Genomics and Precision Health. [8] In 2018, he was named a Fellow of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. [9] In 2021, he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. [10] In 2023, he was awarded University of Pennsylvania's Basser Global Prize for BRCA1 and BRCA2-related research [11] and an Ellis Island Medal of Honor for his national professional and civic contributions. [12]

Early life and education

Offit was born in New York City on February 19, 1955, to Dr. Avodah K. Offit (née Komito), a psychiatrist, and Sidney Offit, an author. [13] Offit attended the Browning School and then Princeton University, where he was chairman of the campus humor magazine, Tiger Magazine. [14] He graduating magna cum laude in 1977 and joined the University Board of Trustees as a young alumni trustee. [13] In this capacity, he worked closely with President William G. Bowen on issues pertaining to Princeton's residential system. [15] In 1979, Offit voted to endorse the proposals of the Committee on Undergraduate Residential Life (CURL) that would become the basis for Princeton's current residential college system. [16] Offit and other trustees would further propose that residential colleges be expanded to include upperclassmen who had not joined a selective eating club—a reform that, with some modification, would be adopted decades later. [15]

After finishing his undergraduate degree, Offit completed an M.D. at Harvard Medical School and an M.P.H. at the Harvard School of Public Health. [13] He then returned to New York for a residency in internal medicine at the Lenox Hill Hospital. Upon finishing the residency in 1985, he moved to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center for a three-year fellowship in hematology and oncology. [13] [17]

Career and research

Offit joined the faculty at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center upon the completion of his fellowship in 1988. [18] His early work involved molecular cytogenetic studies of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. [18]

In 1992, Offit founded one of the world's first clinical cancer genetics services. [11] In 1996, after the discovery of the BRCA2 gene, he and his research group successfully identified the most common mutation on the gene associated with breast and ovarian cancer among individuals of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. [4] [19] [20] [21] [22] Offit would also lead the first American Society of Clinical Oncology policy statement following the identification of BRCA1 and BRCA2. [11] In 1997, he wrote Clinical Cancer Genetics: Risk Counseling and Management, which received an award in Medical Sciences from the Association of American Publishers. [23]

In 2002, Offit and his clinical team published the first prospective study establishing the role of risk-reducing ovarian surgery in women carrying BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations. [24] [25] They would go on to discover or describe recurrent mutations causing increased risk for colon and prostate cancer, and, in 2013 and 2015, they described two genetic syndromes of inherited childhood lymphoblastic leukemia. [26]

In 2018, Offit joined Beth Karlan, Judy Garber, Susan Domchek, and other physicians to launch the BRCA Founder Outreach Study (BFOR). BFOR provided free testing for three mutations for all insured people over the age of 25 with at least one grandparent of Ashkenazi heritage. [27] Offit called BFOR "a model for the future of genetic testing in health care"—one that would, in contrast to direct-to-consumer genetics testing, allow participants to receive results from their primary care provider. [28]

Personal Life

In 1984, Offit married Emily Sonnenblick. Sonnenblick is a radiologist at Mount Sinai Hospital and the daughter of cardiologist Edmund Sonnenblick. [13] One of their daughters, Anna Offit, is an assistant professor of law at Southern Methodist University. [29]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BRCA1</span> Gene known for its role in breast cancer

Breast cancer type 1 susceptibility protein is a protein that in humans is encoded by the BRCA1 gene. Orthologs are common in other vertebrate species, whereas invertebrate genomes may encode a more distantly related gene. BRCA1 is a human tumor suppressor gene and is responsible for repairing DNA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BRCA2</span> Gene known for its role in breast cancer

BRCA2 and BRCA2 are human genes and their protein products, respectively. The official symbol and the official name are maintained by the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee. One alternative symbol, FANCD1, recognizes its association with the FANC protein complex. Orthologs, styled Brca2 and Brca2, are common in other vertebrate species. BRCA2 is a human tumor suppressor gene, found in all humans; its protein, also called by the synonym breast cancer type 2 susceptibility protein, is responsible for repairing DNA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center</span> Treatment and research hospital in New York City

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center is a cancer treatment and research institution in Manhattan in New York City. MSKCC is one of 72 National Cancer Institute–designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers. Its main campus is located at 1275 York Avenue between 67th and 68th Streets in Manhattan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary-Claire King</span> American geneticist

Mary-Claire King is an American geneticist. She was the first to show that breast cancer can be inherited due to mutations in the gene she called BRCA1. She studies human genetics and is particularly interested in genetic heterogeneity and complex traits. She studies the interaction of genetics and environmental influences and their effects on human conditions such as breast and ovarian cancer, inherited deafness, schizophrenia, HIV, systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis. She has been the American Cancer Society Professor of the Department of Genome Sciences and of Medical Genetics in the Department of Medicine at the University of Washington since 1995.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">José Baselga</span> Spanish oncologist (1959–2021)

Josep Baselga i Torres, known in Spanish as José Baselga, was a Spanish medical oncologist and researcher focused on the development of novel molecular targeted agents, with a special emphasis in breast cancer. Through his career he was associated with the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology, and the Massachusetts General Hospital in their hematology and oncology divisions. He led the development of the breast cancer treatment Herceptin, a monoclonal antibody, that targets the HER2 protein, which is impacted in aggressive breast cancers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hereditary breast–ovarian cancer syndrome</span> Medical condition

Hereditary breast–ovarian cancer syndromes (HBOC) are cancer syndromes that produce higher than normal levels of breast cancer, ovarian cancer and additional cancers in genetically related families. It accounts for 90% of the hereditary cancers. The hereditary factors may be proven or suspected to cause the pattern of breast and ovarian cancer occurrences in the family. The name HBOC may be misleading because it implies that this genetic susceptibility to cancer is mainly in women. In reality, both sexes have the same rates of gene mutations and HBOC can predispose to other cancers including prostate cancer and pancreatic cancer. For this reason, the term "King syndrome" has recently come into use. The new name references Mary-Claire King who identified the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2.

TOX high mobility group box family member 3, also known as TOX3, is a human gene.

<i>BRCA</i> mutation Medical condition

A BRCA mutation is a mutation in either of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which are tumour suppressor genes. Hundreds of different types of mutations in these genes have been identified, some of which have been determined to be harmful, while others have no proven impact. Harmful mutations in these genes may produce a hereditary breast–ovarian cancer syndrome in affected persons. Only 5–10% of breast cancer cases in women are attributed to BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations, but the impact on women with the gene mutation is more profound. Women with harmful mutations in either BRCA1 or BRCA2 have a risk of breast cancer that is about five times the normal risk, and a risk of ovarian cancer that is about ten to thirty times normal. The risk of breast and ovarian cancer is higher for women with a high-risk BRCA1 mutation than with a BRCA2 mutation. Having a high-risk mutation does not guarantee that the woman will develop any type of cancer, or imply that any cancer that appears was actually caused by the mutation, rather than some other factor.

Sir Bruce Anthony John Ponder FMedSci FAACR FRS FRCP is an English geneticist and cancer researcher. He is Emeritus Professor of Oncology at the University of Cambridge and former director of the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute and of the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Cancer Centre.

Simon N. Powell is a British cancer researcher and radiation oncologist residing in New York City.

George Bosl is an American cancer researcher, holder of the Patrick M. Byrne Chair in Clinical Oncology at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, and is a professor of medicine at the Weill Cornell Medical College. In 1997, he was appointed chair of the Department of Medicine at Sloan-Kettering, a position which he held until 2015. In 2019, he was named Memorial Sloan Kettering's first ombudsperson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hereditary cancer syndrome</span> Inherited genetic condition that predisposes a person to cancer

A hereditary cancer syndrome is a genetic disorder in which inherited genetic mutations in one or more genes predispose the affected individuals to the development of cancer and may also cause early onset of these cancers. Hereditary cancer syndromes often show not only a high lifetime risk of developing cancer, but also the development of multiple independent primary tumors.

Henry Thompson Lynch was an American physician noted for his discovery of familial susceptibility to certain kinds of cancer and his research into genetic links to cancer.

Nikola Panayot Pavletich is the former chair of structural biology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Susan M. Domchek is an oncologist at the University of Pennsylvania, Executive Director of the Basser Center for BRCA, the Basser Professor in Oncology at the Perelman School of Medicine, and Director of the Mariann and Robert MacDonald Cancer Risk Evaluation Program at Penn Medicine. She has authored more than 250 articles in scholarly journals. In 2018, Domchek was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.

Maria Jasin is a developmental biologist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She is known for studying homologous recombination, a method in which double-strand breaks in DNA strands are repaired, and for discovering the role of BRCA1 and BRCA2 in cancers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jórunn Erla Eyfjörð</span> Icelandic academic

Jórunn Erla Eyfjörð is an Icelandic molecular biologist and professor emerita at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Iceland. She is known for her research on breast cancer genetics.

Carol L. Brown is the Nicholls-Biondi Chair for Health Equity at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and a professor at Weill Cornell Medical College. She is a surgeon known for her work on gynecological cancers.

Deborah Schrag is the Chair of the Department of Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She currently holds the George H. Bosl Chair. She is a medical oncologist known for her work in patient care and examination of patient outcomes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Breast and ovarian cancer</span>

Breast and ovarian cancer does not necessarily imply that both cancers occur at the same time, but rather that getting one cancer would lead to the development of the other within a few years. Women with a history of breast cancer have a higher chance of developing ovarian cancer, vice versa.

References

  1. 1 2 "National Academy of Medicine Elects 79 New Members". National Academy of Medicine. Retrieved October 21, 2016.
  2. ↑ "Kenneth Offit | Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center". Mskcc.org. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  3. ↑ "Offit, Kenneth". Vivo.med.cornell.edu. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  4. 1 2 "Kenneth Offit | Breast Cancer Research Foundation | BCRF". Bcrfcure.org. June 23, 2014. Retrieved July 16, 2015.
  5. ↑ "EGAPP|Working Group: Members". Egappreviews.org. Archived from the original on August 6, 2015. Retrieved July 16, 2015.
  6. ↑ "Three Memorial-Sloan Kettering Researchers Receive Special Awards by the American Society of Clinical Oncology | Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center". Mskcc.org. May 22, 2013. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  7. ↑ "ASCO - American Cancer Society Award and Lecture". Asco.org. Archived from the original on July 20, 2015.
  8. ↑ www.nationalacademies.org https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/roundtable-on-genomics-and-precision-health/about#members . Retrieved March 27, 2024.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  9. ↑ "2018 Fellows of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (FASCO) Recognized During Annual Meeting in Chicago". The ASCO Post. June 3, 2018. Retrieved January 23, 2020.
  10. ↑ "Three Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Faculty Members Elected as 2021 AAAS Fellows | Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center". www.mskcc.org. January 27, 2022. Retrieved September 1, 2022.
  11. 1 2 3 "2023 Basser Global Prize Awarded to Kenneth Offit, MD, MPH". www.pennmedicine.org. Retrieved April 26, 2024.
  12. ↑ "EIHS Medalists". medalists.eihonors.org. Retrieved March 27, 2024.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 "Dr. Emily Sonnenblick Weds in Darien". The New York Times . June 11, 1984. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved July 7, 2015.
  14. ↑ Princeton Alumni Weekly. Princeton Alumni Weekly. 1976. Retrieved July 17, 2015.
  15. 1 2 Malkiel, Nancy Weiss (November 14, 2023). Changing the Game: William G. Bowen and the Challenges of American Higher Education. Princeton University Press. ISBN   978-0-691-24781-6.
  16. ↑ "1. Introduction | Princetoniana Museum". www.princetonianamuseum.org. Retrieved April 27, 2024.
  17. ↑ "Dr. Kenneth Offit - Medical Oncology - New York, NY". Castle Connolly. Retrieved April 26, 2024.
  18. 1 2 "Member Bios|Working Group|EGAPP|CDC". archive.cdc.gov. November 19, 2018. Retrieved April 27, 2024.
  19. ↑ "A revolution at 50; kenneth offit". The New York Times . February 25, 2003. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved July 2, 2015.
  20. ↑ "20 Years of Progress in Understanding Breast Cancer" (JPG). Mskcc.org. Retrieved July 17, 2015.
  21. ↑ Kolata, Gina (October 2, 1996). "2d Breast Cancer Gene Found in Jewish Women". The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved July 7, 2015.
  22. ↑ "Why Choose MSK's Clinical Genetics Service for Genetic Counseling and Testing? | Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center". www.mskcc.org. Retrieved April 6, 2024.
  23. ↑ "Kenneth Offit, MD, MPH - DANA FARBER Master Class Courses for Oncologists". Dfcimasterclass.com. Archived from the original on July 20, 2015. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  24. ↑ Kauff, Noah D.; Satagopan, Jaya M.; Robson, Mark E.; Scheuer, Lauren; Hensley, Martee; Hudis, Clifford A.; Ellis, Nathan A.; Boyd, Jeff; Borgen, Patrick I.; Barakat, Richard R.; Norton, Larry; Castiel, Mercedes; Nafa, Khedoudja; Offit, Kenneth (May 23, 2002). "Risk-Reducing Salpingo-oophorectomy in Women with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 Mutation". New England Journal of Medicine. 346 (21): 1609–1615. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa020119. ISSN   0028-4793. PMID   12023992.
  25. ↑ "Dr. Kenneth Offit Receives ASCO-ACS Award for Genomic Discoveries, Larger Social Implications Regarding Cancer Risk | ASCO Annual Meeting". October 21, 2014. Archived from the original on October 21, 2014. Retrieved March 27, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  26. ↑ "Another Genetic Error Linked to Childhood Leukemia: MedlinePlus". Nlm.nih.gov. Archived from the original on July 16, 2015. Retrieved July 13, 2015.
  27. ↑ Dolsten, Josefin (March 14, 2018). "New study on cancer risk in Ashkenazi Jews aims to be model for genetic testing". The Times of Israel .
  28. ↑ Dolsten, Josefin (March 14, 2018). "New Study Of Ashkenazi Cancer Gene Could Be A Model For Genetic Testing". The Forward .
  29. ↑ "Anna C. Offit". Southern Methodist University, Dedman School of Law.
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