Janet Davison Rowley was an American human geneticist and the first scientist to identify a chromosomal translocation as the cause of leukemia and other cancers, thus proving that cancer is a genetic disease. Rowley spent the majority of her life working in Chicago and received many awards and honors throughout her life, recognizing her achievements and contributions in the area of genetics.
Mario Ramberg Capecchi is an Italian-born molecular geneticist and a co-awardee of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering a method to create mice in which a specific gene is turned off, known as knockout mice. He shared the prize with Martin Evans and Oliver Smithies. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics and Biology at the University of Utah School of Medicine.
Jerry McKee Adams is an Australian-American molecular biologist whose research into the genetics of haemopoietic differentiation and malignancy, led him and his wife, Professor Suzanne Cory, to be the first two scientists to pioneer gene cloning techniques in Australia, and to successfully clone mammalian genes.
Ruth Sager was an American plant geneticist, cell physiologist and cancer researcher. In the 1950s and 1960s she pioneered the field of cytoplasmic genetics by discovering transmission of genetic traits through chloroplast DNA, the first known example of genetics not involving the cell nucleus. The academic community did not acknowledge the significance of her contribution until after the second wave of feminism in the 1970s. Her second career began in the early 1970s and was in cancer genetics; she proposed and investigated the roles of tumor suppressor genes.
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.
Elaine V. Fuchs is an American cell biologist known for her work on the biology and molecular mechanisms of mammalian skin and skin diseases, who helped lead the modernization of dermatology. Fuchs pioneered reverse genetics approaches, which assess protein function first and then assess its role in development and disease. In particular, Fuchs researches skin stem cells and their production of hair and skin. She is an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Rebecca C. Lancefield Professor of Mammalian Cell Biology and Development at The Rockefeller University.
Suzanne Cory is an Australian molecular biologist. She has worked on the genetics of the immune system and cancer and has lobbied her country to invest in science. She is married to fellow scientist Jerry Adams, also a WEHI scientist.
Jane Cooke Wright was a pioneering cancer researcher and surgeon noted for her contributions to chemotherapy. In particular, Wright is credited with developing the technique of using human tissue culture rather than laboratory mice to test the effects of potential drugs on cancer cells. She also pioneered the use of the drug methotrexate to treat breast cancer and skin cancer.
Olufunmilayo I. Olopade born in the year 1957, is a Nigerian hematology oncologist, Associate Dean for Global Health and Walter L. Palmer, Distinguished Service Professor in Medicine and Human Genetics at the University of Chicago. She also serves as director of the University of Chicago Hospital's Cancer Risk Clinic.
Jewel Plummer Cobb was an American biologist, cancer researcher, professor, dean, and academic administrator. She contributed to the field of cancer research by studying the cure for melanoma. Cobb was an advocate for increasing the representation of women and students of color in universities, and she created programs to support students interested in pursuing graduate school.
Lynne Elizabeth Maquat is an American biochemist and molecular biologist whose research focuses on the cellular mechanisms of human disease. She is known for her work in describing the process of nonsense-mediated decay. She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine. She currently holds the J. Lowell Orbison Endowed Chair and is a professor of biochemistry and biophysics, pediatrics and oncology at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
Julie Makani is a Tanzanian medical researcher. From 2014 she is Wellcome Trust Research Fellow and Associate Professor in the Department of Haematology and Blood Transfusion at the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS). Also a visiting fellow and consultant to the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, she is based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In 2011, she received the Royal Society Pfizer Award for her work with sickle cell disease.
Adeyinka Gladys Falusi, FAS NPOM, is a Nigerian Professor of haematology and former Director of the Institute for Advanced Medical Research and Training, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan.
Georgia Chenevix-Trench is an Australian cancer researcher who investigates genetic predispositions to cancer.
Angella Dorothea Ferguson is an American pediatrician known for her groundbreaking research on sickle cell disease.
Elaine Ann Ostrander is an American geneticist at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. She holds a number of professional academic appointments, currently serving as Distinguished and Senior Investigator and head of the NHGRI Section of Comparative Genomics; and Chief of the Cancer Genetics and Comparative Genomics Branch. She is known for her research on prostate cancer susceptibility in humans and for conducting genetic investigations with the Canis familiaris —the domestic dog— model, which she has used to study disease susceptibility and frequency and other aspects of natural variation across mammals. In 2007, her laboratory showed that much of the variation in body size of domestic dogs is due to sequence changes in a single gene encoding a growth-promoting protein.
Charis Eng was a Singaporean American physician-scientist and geneticist at the Cleveland Clinic, notable for identifying the PTEN gene. She was the chairwoman and founding director of the Genomic Medicine Institute of the Cleveland Clinic, founding director and attending clinical cancer geneticist of the institute's clinical component, the Center for Personalized Genetic Healthcare, and professor and vice chairwoman of the Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
Georgia Mae Dunston is an American geneticist who is professor of human immunogenetics at Howard University and founding director of the National Human Genome Center at Howard University.
Margaret Ann Pericak-Vance is an American human geneticist who is the Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation Professor of Human Genetics and director of the John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics at the University of Miami. She is known for her research on the genetics of common human diseases. This research has led to a number of findings of genes that increase the risk of certain diseases, such as apolipoprotein E and Alzheimer's disease, IL7R and multiple sclerosis, and complement factor H and macular degeneration.
Monica Baskin is an American psychologist who is a professor of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her research considers health disparities in the Deep South. She serves as Director of Community Outreach and Engagement at the O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center.
