Charles Sawyers Explained

Charles L. Sawyers
Birth Name:	Charles Lazelle Sawyers^[1]
Birth Place:	Nashville, Tennessee
Profession:	Physician
Specialism:	Oncologist
Research Field:	Leukemia/prostate cancer
Education:	Johns Hopkins University, Princeton, UCSF
Work Institutions:	Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Prizes:	Lasker Clinical Award (2009) BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2014)

Charles L. Sawyers (born 1959) 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.^[2]

Career

Sawyers received a BA from Princeton University in 1981 and an MD from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1985,^[3] followed by an internal medicine residency at the University of California, San Francisco.^[4] He became a HHMI investigator in 2002 while working at UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center.^[5]

Sawyers works on molecularly targeted cancer drugs, with a focus on developing a new generation of treatment options for patients. He shared the 2009 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award with Brian J. Druker and Nicholas Lydon,^[6] for the development of the ABL kinase inhibitor imatinib for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia and the second-generation ABL inhibitor dasatinib to overcome imatinib resistance. He also co-discovered the antiandrogen drugs enzalutamide, approved by the FDA in 2012, and apalutamide^[7] approved in 2019, both for treatment of advanced prostate cancer.^[8]

Sawyers' cancer research is discussed in the second episode of Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies.

Significant positions

Sawyers served as president of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) in 2007^[9] and of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) in 2012.^[10] He was also appointed to the National Cancer Advisory Board by President Obama in 2012,^[11] and has served on the Board of Directors of Novartis since 2013.^[12] He was a founding co-editor of the Annual Review of Cancer Biology in 2017,^[13] serving until 2021.^[14]

Memberships

• National Academy of Sciences
• National Academy of Medicine
• American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Awards

• Doris Duke Distinguished Clinical Scientist Award (2001)^[15]
• David A. Karnofsky Memorial Award, American Society of Clinical Oncology (2005)^[16]
• Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award, American Association for Cancer Research (2005)^[17]
• Dorothy P. Landon–AACR Prize for Translational Cancer Research (2009)^[18]
• Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award (2009)^[19]
• Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences (2013)^[20]
• Taubman Prize for Excellent in Translational Medical Science (2013)^[21]
• Hope Funds for Cancer Research Award of Excellence for Clinical Development (2014)^[22]
• BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biomedicine along with Tony Hunter and Joseph Schlessinger (2014)^[23]
• The Scheele Award (2017), The Swedish Academy of Pharmaceutical Science.

External links

• Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center - Biography, Lab Description
• Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program
• Howard Hughes Medical Institute - Biography, Lab Description
• Video:Talk by Sawyers at the NIH-Lasker Clinical Research Scholars Symposium, March 31, 2011.
• Video:Speaking to Katie Couric regarding Stand Up 2 Cancer - @KatieCouric, CBS news, September 8, 2010
  • Video:On outsmarting cancer - @KatieCouric, CBS news, September 8, 2010
• Quoted: New Drugs Stir Debate on Rules of Clinical Trials, New York Times, September 19, 2010
• Quoted: What can we learn from curable cancers? Newsweek, September 7, 2010
• Video: Speaking with Charlie Rose: A discussion about Cancer Treatments, October 1, 2009

Notes and References

1. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Annual Scientific Report, The Institute, 1990, p. 507.
2. Web site: At Work: Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program Chair Charles Sawyers Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. www.mskcc.org. 5 April 2017. en.
3. News: Susan Schneck Weds Charles Sawyers. 3 March 2017. The New York Times. 22 October 1990.
4. Web site: UCSF Department of Medicine Alumni Profile: Dr. Charles Sawyers. medicine.ucsf.edu. 3 March 2017. en. https://web.archive.org/web/20150908061547/https://medicine.ucsf.edu/news/fom/frontiers.html?key=62. 8 September 2015. dead.
5. Web site: Charles L. Sawyers, MD. HHMI.org. 5 April 2017. en.
6. Grindlinger. Brooke. Chao. ES. Trio receives Lasker Foundation Clinical Award for breakthroughs in leukemia treatment. Journal of Clinical Investigation. 1 October 2009. 119. 10. 2863–2865. 10.1172/JCI41141. 2752112. 0021-9738.
7. Tran C, Ouk S, Clegg NJ, Chen Y, Watson PA, Arora V, Wongvipat J, Smith-Jones PM, Yoo D, Kwon A, Wasielewska T, Welsbie D, Chen CD, Higano CS, Beer TM, Hung DT, Scher HI, Jung ME, Sawyers CL . Development of a second-generation antiandrogen for treatment of advanced prostate cancer . Science . 324 . 5928 . 787–90 . 2009 . 19359544 . 2981508 . 10.1126/science.1168175 . 2009Sci...324..787T .
8. 10.1089/dna.1.1988.7.579. 3180999. Generation of Multiple Independent Substitution Mutants by M13 in Vitro Mutagenesis Using a Single Mutagenic Oligonucleotide. DNA. 7. 8. 579–584. 1988. Reyes. Antonio A.. Akeson. Richard.
9. Web site: 2008 American Society for Clinical Investigation Presidential Address. the-asci.org. 3 March 2017.
10. Web site: Charles L. Sawyers, MD. aacr.org. 4 March 2017.
11. Web site: President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts. whitehouse.gov. 4 March 2017. en. 6 December 2012.
12. Web site: Charles L. Sawyers, M.D. Member of the Board of Directors. novartis.com. 4 March 2017.
13. 10.1146/annurev-ca-01-121516-100001. Introduction. 2017. Jacks. Tyler. Sawyers. Charles. Annual Review of Cancer Biology. 1. i. free.
14. Web site: Annual Review of Cancer Biology Editorial Committee . Annual Reviews . 18 July 2022. 2022.
15. Web site: Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Awards $10.5 Million for Medical Research. Philanthropy News Digest (PND). 5 April 2017. en.
16. Web site: Recipients of the David A. Karnofsky Memorial Award and Lecture - The ASCO Post. www.ascopost.com. 5 April 2017. en. https://web.archive.org/web/20170919010207/http://ascopost.com/issues/june-3-2016-special-issue/recipients-of-the-david-a-karnofsky-memorial-award-and-lecture/. 19 September 2017. dead.
17. Awards, Appointments, Announcements. 11. JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute. 97. 797. en. 10.1093/jnci/97.11.797. 1 June 2005. free.
18. Web site: Dorothy P. Landon-AACR Prize for Translational Cancer Research. www.aacr.org. 5 April 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20170903005411/http://www.aacr.org/Research/Awards/PAGES/DOROTHY-P-LANDON-AACR-PRIZE___8470D6.ASPX. 3 September 2017. dead.
19. Web site: Foundation. Lasker. Molecularly targeted treatments for chronic myeloid leukemia The Lasker Foundation. The Lasker Foundation. 5 April 2017. en.
20. Web site: Breakthrough Prize. breakthroughprize.org. 5 April 2017. en.
21. Web site: Taubman Prize. A. Alfred Taubman Medical Research Institute. 16 March 2017.
22. Web site: 2014 Honorees. The Hope Funds for Cancer Research. 5 April 2017. 5 September 2013.
23. Web site: BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards. www.fbbva.es. 5 April 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20150921164527/http://www.fbbva.es/TLFU/tlfu/ing/microsites/premios/fronteras/galardonados/2014/biomedicina.jsp. 21 September 2015. dead.