Stuart A. Aaronson

Biography

Dr. Aaronson is an internationally recognized cancer biologist, who in early studies established the transformation-competent but replication defective nature of mammalian sarcoma viruses and molecularly cloned many of their oncogenes. He and colleagues implicated retroviral-related oncogenes in human cancer through investigations including the initial detection of their expression in human tumors and critical contributions to the demonstration of their involvement in human cancer. His investigations of the v-sis oncogene established the first normal function of an oncogene and the role of oncogenes in growth factor signaling. His discovery of erbB2 as a v-erbB-related gene amplified in a human breast carcinoma and demonstration of its transforming properties paved the way for targeted therapies directed against its product.

He isolated KGF (FGF7), a growth factor with novel epithelial cell specificity and demonstrated its involvement in wound repair. Its successful phase III clinical trial by Amgen for treatment of mucositis, recently led the FDA to approve Kepivance (KGF) for treatment of this debilitating side effect of many cancer therapies. Thus, Dr. Aaronson's pioneering discoveries have directly led to new therapies for cancer patients.

His development and application of stable expression cDNA cloning technology resulted in his identification of new human oncogenes, growth factor receptors, and other genes, which induce transformation or drug resistance. He and colleagues identified the protooncogene product, MET, as the receptor for HGF/Scatter Factor and LRP5/6 as the receptor for a novel Wnt antagonist, Dkk1. This latter discovery paved the way for his recent demonstration with colleagues of a Wnt autocrine transforming mechanism in human malignancies.

Dr. Aaronson received his M.D. from UCSF in 1966. He joined the National Institutes of Health in 1967 and became Chief of the Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Biology at the National Cancer Institute in 1977. He joined Mount Sinai in 1994 and is the Jack and Jane B. Aron Professor and Chairman of the Department of Oncological Sciences. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Distinguished Service Medal from the U.S. Public Health Service, the Rhoads Memorial Award from the American Association of Cancer Research, and the Paul Erhlich Prize from Germany. He is the author of over 530 publications, an inventor on more than 50 patents, and serves on numerous editorial boards and scientific advisory committees.