Two profs win prestigious Lasker research award

It may not be a Nobel Prize, but it isn't bad. In a ringing endorsement of their work, two Penn Penn professors have recently been honored with the prestigious Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Award, a prize often referred to as "America's Nobels." Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Professor Peter Nowell and Human Genetics and Pediatrics Professor Alfred Knudson received the honor for demonstrating how genes can induce cancer. Nowell and Knudson, a scientist at the Fox Chase Cancer Center, found out in June that they won the award. Janet Rowley of the University of Chicago Medical Center also received the award for a separate project. The Lasker Award, created in 1945, is given out by a panel of 30 international scientists. Each recipient also receives a $10,000 cash grant. Neen Hunt, executive director of the Albert Lasker Foundation, said recipients are chosen based on the "excellence in the research endeavor, a direction in their research which provoked new thinking, startling conclusions and the highest caliber of research methodology." The Albert Lasker Foundation, based in New York City, was created to support biomedical research and raise public awareness of the importance of research into potential cures for a variety of diseases, including cancer. The foundation is funded by resources from a trust created by the estate of Lasker, a cancer patient committed to funding research into the disease. Nowell, 70, began studying leukemia 40 years ago at Penn, a few years after he graduated from the University's Medical School. In the 1960s he observed that tumor growth started from a single cell as a result of a defective chromosome. "By identifying a specific altered gene that is limited to the tumor cell, you can target that cell," he explained. This idea was revolutionary in the medical world. At the time, doctors did not have the technology to distinguish one chromosome from another. Nowell had to wait 10 years until he could separate the actual genes involved in the chromosome arrangement. In Knudson's research, he examined children's eye tumors, also known as retinoblastoma. He saw that this kind of cancer existed in infants with a rare gene as well as those without. When he asked himself what the relationship was between the hereditary cases and the non-hereditary cases, Knudson hypothesized that while the eye is developing it must get two "hits" to turn it into a tumor. First, Knudson said, there are genes which prevent the tumors from forming that are naturally missing in certain people. Second, random mutations occur in normal genes that can lead to cancer. It is this second "hit," the doctor surmised, that causes cancer. However, the two doctors have remained modest about the honor they have received. "Awards have been the icing on the cake," Nowell said. "More important is the enjoyable career I've had." Nowell currently teaches Penn Medical School students a Pathology course and a general honors undergraduate course about cancer. He also continues to work in the laboratory every day doing pathology research. He explained that he has strong feelings against smoking because he recognizes it as the greatest single risk factor in lung cancer. "All the business about the tobacco industry? it annoys the hell out of me," Nowell said. "I would love to see a younger generation not to have to play that game." Knudson, who has taught at Penn since 1976, said "the nicest thing about [the award] is that people you respect think you've done good things." At 76, Knudson still gives lectures and sits on panel discussions at the Penn Medical School. He also serves as senior adviser to the president of the Fox Chase Cancer Research Center in Northeast Philadelphia.