| Bruce Ames | |
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Bruce Ames
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| Born | 16 December 1928 New York City |
| Nationality | United States |
| Fields | Molecular Biology, Biochemistry |
| Institutions | University of California, Berkeley Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute |
| Alma mater | California Institute of Technology, Cornell |
Bruce Nathan Ames (born December 16, 1928) is an American biochemist. He is a professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior scientist at Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI). He is the inventor of the Ames test, a system for easily and cheaply testing the mutagenicity of compounds.
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He was born and raised in New York City. He is a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science. His undergraduate studies were at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and his graduate studies were completed at the California Institute of Technology.[1]
Ames was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1970.[2]
He is a recipient of the Bolton S. Corson Medal in 1980, Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement in 1985, the Japan Prize in 1997, the National Medal of Science in 1998 and the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal in 2004,[3] among many others.
His research focuses on cancer and aging and he has authored over 500 scientific publications. He is among the few hundred most-cited scientists in all fields.
Ames' current research includes identifying agents that delay the mitochondrial decay of aging, understanding the role of mitochondrial decay in aging, particularly in the brain, optimizing micronutrient intakes in the population to prevent disease, malnutrition, and obesity. He is also interested in mutagens as they relate to cancer prevention and aging.
Bruce Ames developed the Ames test, described in series of papers in the 1970s, which is a cheap and convenient assay for mutagens and potential carcinogens. It is widely used as an initial screen for possible carcinogens and has been used to identify carcinogens previously used in commercial products,[4] and their identification as carcinogens led to those products being withdrawn from commercial use. Carcinogenic tests using animals are expensive and time-consuming which made them impractical for use in screening on a wide scale. The ease with which Ames test allows widely-used chemicals to be identified as possible carcinogens made him an early hero of environmentalism.[5]
However, Ames later took the contrary position to environmentalists and argued that environmental exposure to manufactured chemicals may be of limited relevance to human cancer, even when such chemicals are mutagenic in an Ames test and carcinogenic in rodent assays.[6] He contended that most human genetic damage arises from the oxidation of DNA during normal metabolism, and that the most important environmental carcinogens may include some whose chief effect is to cause the chronic division of stem cells whereby the normal protective mechanisms of a cell become less effective.
He argued for the use of synthetic pesticides and other chemicals such as Alar which have been shown to be carcinogenic.[5] He was concerned that overzealous attention to the relatively minor health effects of trace quantities of carcinogens may divert scarce financial resources away from major health risks, and cause public confusion about the relative importance of different hazards. Ames considered himself a leading “contrarian in the hysteria over tiny traces of chemicals that may or may not cause cancer", and said that "if you have thousands of hypothetical risks that you are supposed to pay attention to, that completely drives out the major risks you should be aware of."[7]