Richard Kolodner

Last updated
Richard D. Kolodner
Alma mater
Scientific career
Fields Oncology
Institutions

Richard David Kolodner is an American scientist with Ludwig Cancer Research who has made research contributions to the genetic basis for inherited susceptibility to common cancers. He is a Distinguished Professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. Kolodner is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine, and he is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Biography

Kolodner earned an undergraduate degree and a Ph.D. at University of California, Irvine. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School, where he studied DNA replication. After joining the faculty at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in 1978 and establishing his own laboratory, he focused his research on DNA recombination. [1] He became chair of the Charles A. Dana Division of Human Cancer Genetics in 1995. He joined the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, San Diego Branch in 1997. [2]

Kolodner has made fundamental contributions to the understanding of the mechanisms of genetic recombination, [3] DNA mismatch repair [4] and the pathways that prevent genome instability. [5] While studying DNA repair in bacteria and yeast, Kolodner identified two DNA mismatch repair genes, MSH2 and MLH1, that lead to 95 percent of hereditary colon cancer cases. In both cases, Kolodner reported his findings simultaneously with Bert Vogelstein at Johns Hopkins University. [1] Kolodner also discovered that epigenetic silencing of MLH1 is the cause of much more common sporadic mismatch repair defective cancers. [6]

Kolodner was the Director of Ludwig Cancer Research San Diego Branch, [7] and he is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. [6]

He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2000. [8] He has also been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences [9] and a member of the National Academy of Medicine. He is a past recipient of the Charles S. Mott Prize for Outstanding Research in Cancer Causation or Prevention, awarded by the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation [10] and the Kirk A. Landon-AACR Prize in Basic Cancer Research. [11]

Kolodner was one of six UCSD faculty members to sue the institution over a planned reduction in funding to the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. [12]

Related Research Articles

University of California, San Francisco Public university in San Francisco, California

The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and it is dedicated entirely to health science. It is a major center of medical and biological research and teaching.

University of California, San Diego Public university in San Diego, California

The University of California, San Diego is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is the southernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California, and offers over 200 undergraduate and graduate degree programs, enrolling 33,343 undergraduate and 9,533 graduate students. The university occupies 2,178 acres (881 ha) near the coast of the Pacific Ocean, with the main campus resting on approximately 1,152 acres (466 ha). UC San Diego is ranked among the best universities in the world by major college and university rankings.

Richard C. Atkinson

Richard Chatham Atkinson is an American professor of psychology and cognitive science and an academic administrator. He is president emeritus of the University of California system, former chancellor of the University of California, San Diego, and former director of the National Science Foundation.

DNA mismatch repair

DNA mismatch repair (MMR) is a system for recognizing and repairing erroneous insertion, deletion, and mis-incorporation of bases that can arise during DNA replication and recombination, as well as repairing some forms of DNA damage.

UC San Diego Health Hospital in San Diego, California

UC San Diego Health is the academic health system of the University of California, San Diego in San Diego, California. It is the only academic health system serving San Diego and has one of only two adult Level I trauma centers in the region. In operation since 1966, it comprises the UC San Diego Medical Center in Hillcrest as well as the; Jacobs Medical Center; Moores Cancer Center; Shiley Eye Institute; Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center, and Koman Family Outpatient Pavilion, all in La Jolla. It also includes several outpatient sites located throughout San Diego County. The health system works closely with the university's School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy to provide training to medical and pharmacy students and advanced clinical care to patients.

UC San Diego School of Medicine Medical school of UC San Diego

The University of California San Diego School of Medicine is the graduate medical school of the University of California, San Diego. It was the third medical school in the University of California system, after those established at UCSF and UCLA, and is the only medical school in the San Diego metropolitan area. It is closely affiliated with the medical centers that are part of UC San Diego Health.

MSH2

DNA mismatch repair protein Msh2 also known as MutS homolog 2 or MSH2 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the MSH2 gene, which is located on chromosome 2. MSH2 is a tumor suppressor gene and more specifically a caretaker gene that codes for a DNA mismatch repair (MMR) protein, MSH2, which forms a heterodimer with MSH6 to make the human MutSα mismatch repair complex. It also dimerizes with MSH3 to form the MutSβ DNA repair complex. MSH2 is involved in many different forms of DNA repair, including transcription-coupled repair, homologous recombination, and base excision repair.

MLH1

MutL homolog 1, colon cancer, nonpolyposis type 2 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the MLH1 gene located on chromosome 3. It is a gene commonly associated with hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer. Orthologs of human MLH1 have also been studied in other organisms including mouse and the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Paul L. Modrich American biochemist and Nobel Laureate (born 1946)

Paul Lawrence Modrich is an American biochemist, James B. Duke Professor of Biochemistry at Duke University and Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is known for his research on DNA mismatch repair. Modrich received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2015, jointly with Aziz Sancar and Tomas Lindahl.

Napoleone Ferrara

Napoleone Ferrara, is an Italian-American molecular biologist who joined University of California, San Diego Moores Cancer Center in 2013 after a career in Northern California at the biotechnology giant Genentech, where he pioneered the development of new treatments for angiogenic diseases such as cancer, age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and diabetic retinopathy. At Genentech, he discovered VEGF—and made the first anti-VEGF antibody—which suppresses growth of a variety of tumors. These findings helped lead to development of the first clinically available angiogenesis inhibitor, bevacizumab (Avastin), which prevents the growth of new blood vessels into a solid tumor and which has become part of standard treatment for a variety of cancers. Ferrara's work led also to the development of ranibizumab (Lucentis), a drug that is highly effective at preventing vision loss in intraocular neovascular disorders.

Charles Sawyers American physician-scientist (born 1959)

Charles L. Sawyers is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator who holds the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Chair of the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program (HOPP) at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). HOPP is a program created in 2006 that comprises researchers from many disciplines to bridge clinical and laboratory discoveries.

Anthony R. Hunter British-American biologist (born 1943)

Anthony Rex Hunter is a British-American biologist who is a Professor of Biology at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the University of California San Diego. His research publications list his name as Tony Hunter.

Don W. Cleveland

Don W. Cleveland is an American cancer biologist and neurobiologist.

Webster K. "Web" Cavenee is the Director of Strategic Alliances in Central Nervous System Cancers at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and Distinguished Professor at the University of California, San Diego. He was the Director of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research until 2015 when it was taken over by Richard Kolodner. His laboratory studies gene mutations in cancer, most notably in EGFR and glioblastoma multiforme.

Scott M. Lippman is the director of Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego and Professor of Medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

Stephen Bruce Baylin is the deputy director and associate director for research at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center and Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor for Cancer Research and medicine and chief of cancer biology of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research focus is epigenetics in the development of cancer, and he was one of the first researchers in this field in the 1980s.

UC San Diego Medical Center, Hillcrest Hospital in California, United States

The UC San Diego Medical Center, Hillcrest is one of two medical centers of UC San Diego Health and is a teaching hospital for the University of California San Diego School of Medicine.

Michael Karin is an Israeli-American Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology, Ben and Wanda Hildyard Chair for Mitochondrial and Metabolic Diseases, American Cancer Society Research Professor at the University of California, San Diego.

Gary Firestein

Gary S. Firestein is an American rheumatologist, professor, and founding director of the Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute (ACTRI) at the University of California San Diego and Senior Associate Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences at University of California, San Diego.

JoAnn Trejo is an American pharmacologist, cell biologist and professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the School of Medicine at University of California, San Diego. She is also the assistant vice chancellor for Health Sciences Faculty Affairs. Trejo studies cell signalling by protease-activated G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). She is also actively involved in mentoring, education and outreach activities to increase the diversity of science.

References

  1. 1 2 Kolata, Gina (May 3, 1994). "Scientist at work". The New York Times . Retrieved January 2, 2016.
  2. ↑ "Richard D. Kolodner, PhD". American Association for Cancer Research . Retrieved January 2, 2016.
  3. ↑ "UCSD Cancer Center scientist elected to National Academy of Sciences". UCSD Health Sciences. Reagents of the University of California. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
  4. ↑ Stringer, Nancy. "UCSD Cancer Researcher Richard D. Kolodner Honored with Landon-AACR Prize for Basic Cancer Research". UCSD News Center. Regents of the University of California. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
  5. ↑ Benowitz, Steve. "Researchers Uncover Potential Mechanisms to Protect Against Genetic Alterations, Diseases". UC San Diego News Center. Regents of the University of California. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
  6. 1 2 "Richard Kolodner, Ph.D." Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas. Retrieved January 2, 2016.
  7. ↑ "Richard Kolodner selected as new director of Ludwig Cancer Research San Diego Branch". Our Story News Releases. Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research Ltd. Retrieved June 16, 2015.
  8. ↑ "Richard D. Kolodner". National Academy of Sciences . Retrieved January 2, 2016.
  9. ↑ "Drs. Richard D. Kolodner and Samuel I. Rapaport Are New Fellows of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences". News from the Department of Medicine. Regents of the University of California. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
  10. ↑ "Two Biochemists Win Charles S. Mott Prize for Outstanding Research in Cancer Causation or Prevention". Cancer Network. UBM Media LLC. August 1996. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
  11. ↑ "Kirk A. Landon-AACR Prize for Basic Cancer Research Recipients". AACR. American Association for Cancer Research. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
  12. ↑ Price, Michael (7 February 2020). "Major cancer institute sued by its own researchers over 'tapering' funding". Science | AAAS.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.