| |  | | Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD
Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics
Blackburn is a professor of microbiology and biochemistry at the University of California at San Francisco and an expert on telomeres. She is credited for discovering the substance called telomerase and has published extensively on the subject of these protective caps on the ends of chromosomes.
Brian Druker, MD
Director, OHSU Cancer Institute Leukemia Center
Druker is the director of the OHSU Cancer Institute's Leukemia Center. In collaboration with Ciba-Geigy (now Novartis Pharmaceuticals) Druker developed the drug called Gleevec, which has seen an enormous success in treating a rare form of leukemia. His groundbreaking work has garnered much media attention, because of the drug's success.
Leland Hartwell, PhD
Director, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Dr. Hartwell is presently the president and director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. He won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2001 for his work on control of the cell cycle. Using the yeast as a model organism, he has identified many genes responsible for controlling cell division.
Mary-Claire King, PhD
Professor of Medicine and Genetics
King is an American Cancer Society professor of medicine and genetics at the University of Washington in Seattle. She was the first to prove that breast cancer is inherited in some families. She is now investigating the genes that predispose some women to breast cancer to learn what these genes may reveal about breast cancer generally.
Robert Weinberg, PhD
Member, Whitehead Institute
Weinberg is a founding member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. Weinberg and his colleagues discovered the first human cancer-causing gene, Ras . Weinberg has written and edited five books and more than 290 articles.
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