Tyler Jacks

Tyler Jacks
Fields Cancer Research
Institutions David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Alma mater Harvard University
University of California, San Francisco

Tyler Jacks is a Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), an HHMI investigator, and director of the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, which brings together biologists and engineers to improve detection, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer.[1]

Early life

Tyler Jacks graduated magna cum laude with Highest Honors in biology from Harvard University in 1983[2] and earned a PhD in biochemistry from the University of California, San Francisco in 1988.[3] He then went on to do postdoctoral research at MIT in the Whitehead Institute in the lab of Robert Weinberg.

Career

He was named an Assistant Professor at MIT in 1992 and Associate Professor with tenure in 1997. In 2000, he was promoted to full Professor standing.[4] He currently teaches the spring version of introductory biology (7.013) at MIT with Professor Hazel Sive.

He served on the Board of Scientific Advisors of the National Cancer Institute and is a past president of the American Association of Cancer Research.[5] He also sits on the board of directors at Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc.[6] and Aveo Pharmaceuticals Inc.[7] He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board at T2Biosystems, Inc. and at Epizyme, Inc.[8]

Research

He has pioneered the use of gene-targeting technology in mice to study cancer-associated genes and to construct mouse models of many human cancer types.[9] The Jacks lab studies the genetic events that lead to the development of cancer. The lab focuses on using a series of mouse strains carrying engineered mutations known to be involved in human cancer. Through loss-of-function and gain-of-function mutations in tumor suppressor genes as well as the K-ras oncogene, mouse models of many types of cancer have been constructed, including pancreatic cancer, astrocytoma, endometrioid ovarian cancer, colorectal cancer, sarcoma, retinoblastoma, and tumors of the peripheral nervous system.[10]

Awards and recognitions

In 1997, he received the Rhoads Award from the American Association of Cancer Research. In 1998, he won the Amgen Award from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He has also been named a Ludwig Research Scholar in Cancer Biology from Johns Hopkins University. In 2002, he won the Chestnut Hill Award for Excellence in Medical Research, and in 2005 he won the Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research. He was elected to the National Academy of Science in 2009.[11] In 2014, he was presented the Hope Funds for Cancer Research Award of Excellence for Basic Research.

References

Publications

External links