2019 Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize Lectures
Lewis C. Cantley, PhD
Meyer Director, Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center
Professor of Cancer Biology in Medicine
Weill Cornell Medicine
Lecture #3
“PI 3-Kinase and Cancer Metabolism”
Thursday, January 9, 2020
3 p.m.
Alumni Auditorium
650 W. 168th St., First Floor
Dr. Cantley is professor of cancer biology in medicine and the Meyer Director of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine. He has made significant advances in cancer research stemming from his discovery of the signaling pathway phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) in 1984. The author of more than 400 original papers and 50 book chapters and review articles, Dr. Cantley is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the National Academies of Sciences and Medicine, and a member of the European life sciences academy EMBO. He graduated summa cum laude with a BS in chemistry from West Virginia Wesleyan College and obtained a PhD in biophysical chemistry from Cornell University. He conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard University, where he was appointed assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology. In 1985 he left Harvard to became a professor of physiology at Tufts University but returned to Harvard Medical School as professor of cell biology in 1992. He was appointed chief of Harvard’s new Division of Signal Transduction and later a founding member of its Department of Systems Biology. He also served as the director of the Beth Israel Deaconess Cancer Center from 2007 to 2012, when he joined Weill Cornell Medicine as the Meyer Director of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center. Among his accolades are the ASBMB Avanti Award for Lipid Research (1998); Heinrich Wieland Preis for Lipid Research (2000); Caledonian Prize from the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2002); Pezcoller Foundation–AACR International Award for Cancer Research (2005); Rolf Luft Award for Diabetes and Endocrinology Research from the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm (2009); Pasarow Prize for Cancer Research (2011); Breakthrough in Life Sciences Prize (2013); Jacobaeus Prize for Diabetes Research from the Karolinska Institute (2013); AACR Princess Takamatsu Memorial Lectureship (2015); Ross Prize in Molecular Medicine (2015); Canada Gairdner International Award (2015); AACI Distinguished Scientist Award (2015); Hope Funds Award of Excellence in Basic Science (2016); Wolf Prize (2016); and NCI Outstanding Investigator Award (2016).
