640: A Pathway to Success: Studying Signal Transduction in Cancer and Other Diseases - Dr. Lewis Cantley

Dr. Lewis Cantley is the Director of the Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medical College as well as the Stanton Clinical Cancer Program at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. In addition, he is Co-Founder of Petra Pharma and Agios Pharmaceuticals. His research investigates signal transduction. He has spent most of his career trying to improve our understanding of cell signaling pathways at a molecular level since many diseases, such as cancer, involve defects in signaling. Outside science, he is an avid reader of science fiction, mystery, and history books. He received his B.S. in Chemistry from West Virginia Wesleyan College and his Ph.D. in Biophysical Chemistry from Cornell University. Lewis conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard University, and served on the faculty at Harvard University, as well as Tufts University before joining the faculty at Cornell. Lewis has received many awards and honors during his career, including the 2005 Pezcoller Foundation-American Association for Cancer Research International Award for Cancer Research, the 2013 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the 2015 Ross Prize in Molecular Medicine, the 2015 Wolf Prize, the 2015 Association of American Cancer Institutes Distinguished Scientist Award, the 2015 Canada Cairdner award, and he was named one of “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” in 2015 by Thomson Reuter. Lewis is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, and the European Life Sciences Academy. Lewis is here with us today to tell us all about his journey through life and science.