Alexander Strongin earned his PhD from Moscow State University in Russia in 1972 and his D.Sci. degree from the Institute of Microbial Genetics in Moscow in 1983. From 1982 to 1988, Dr. Strongin was head of the Laboratory of Functional Enzymology at the Institute of Genetics of Microorganisms in Moscow. He served as head of the Department of Biotechnology and Laboratory of Protein Engineering, Institute of Molecular Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, from 1988 to 1990. From 1990 to 1994, he was a visiting professor of biochemistry in the Division of Dermatology at Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Strongin has worked in the La Jolla area since 1994, as senior staff scientist in the Biology Division at General Atomics, 1994-1995, and as senior staff scientist at the La Jolla Institute for Experimental Medicine, 1995-1999. Dr. Strongin joined Sanford Burnham Prebys on September 1, 1999.
Related Disease: Breast Cancer
William Stallcup earned his PhD in biochemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 1972. He did postdoctoral work at the Salk Institute, where he was appointed Assistant Professor in 1976. Dr. Stallcup was recruited to Sanford Burnham Prebys in 1984.
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Showing 1 of 1Arnold C. Satterthwait earned his PhD In Biochemistry with William Jencks from Brandeis University in 1973. He carried out postdoctoral research in Chemistry at Harvard University with Frank Westheimer, Imperial College with Alan Fersht and MIT with the Nobel laureate Gobind Khorana. In 1984, he joined The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA as an Assistant Professor. He moved to Sanford Burnham Prebys in 1998.
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Showing 3 of 3Erkki Ruoslahti earned his MD and PhD from the University of Helsinki in Finland in 1967. After postdoctoral training at the California Institute of Technology, he held various academic appointments with the University of Helsinki and the University of Turku in Finland and City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, California. He joined Sanford Burnham Prebys in 1979 and served as its President from 1989-2002. He was a Distinguished Professor at University of California Santa Barbara in Biological Sciences 2005-2015. His honors include elected membership to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the European Molecular Biology Organization, the Japan Prize, Gairdner Foundation International Award, G.H.A. Clowes Award, Robert J. and Claire Pasarow Foundation Award, and Jacobaeus International Prize. He was a Nobel Fellow at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm in 1995, and is an Honorary Doctor of Medicine from the University of Lund, as well as a Knight and Commander of the Orders of the White Rose the the Lion of Finland. In 2022, Dr. Ruoslahti was announced as one of three winners of the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award.
Education
1966: MD, University of Helsinki in Finland
1967: PhD, University of Helsinki in Finland
Awards and Honors
2022: Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research
Commander of the Order of the Lion of Finland
Knight of the Order of the White Rose of Finland
2012: Thomson Reuters Citation Laureate
2005: Japan Prize in Cell Biology
2003: Jubilee Lecturer, Biochemical Society
1998: Jacobaeus International Prize
1997: Gairdner Foundation International Award
1995: Nobel Fellow at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm
1991: Honorary doctorate in medicine from Lund University, Sweden
1990: American Association for Cancer Research – G.H.A. Clowes Memorial Award
Member
National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Medicine
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
European Molecular Biology Organization
Robert Oshima graduated from the University of California Santa Barbara in Cellular Biology. He earned his PhD from the University of California at San Diego in 1973 with Paul Price. He joined Dr. Jerry Schneider’s laboratory in the UCSD Medical School to work on the biochemistry of cystinosis, a genetic lysosomal storage disease. During that time, he contributed to the development of a treatment that extends the life of patients greatly. He acquired expertise in developmental biology and stem cells in the laboratories of Drs. Boris Ephrussi and Mary Weiss at the Centre National Recherche Scientifique, Gif-sur-Yvette, France in 1975. He continued those studies upon returning to UCSD and then moved to MIT in 1979 where he purified two markers of mouse stem cell differentiation that are widely used in the cancer pathology and developmental studies. He joined the Sanford Burnham Prebys (formerly known as the La Jolla Cancer Research Foundation) in 1982 where he acted as Associate Scientific Director, a Program Director in the NCI designated Cancer Center, Postdoctoral Training Program Director, started the Tumor Analysis Shared Service and directed research on stem cells and cancer that resulted in over 100 publications. He also served as a reviewer for multiple cancer research granting agencies and taught at UC San Diego as an Adjunct Professor of Pathology from 1997. He is currently Professor Emeritus (2015) and continues to advise and consult in cancer research. His particular cancer research interest is in methods of directing premalignant cancer cells to adopt a normal benign cell fate instead of becoming invasive malignant cancer.
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Showing 3 of 3Michiko N. Fukuda earned her PhD in biochemistry at the University of Tokyo in 1980. She did postdoctoral work at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle prior to her recruitment to Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in 1982.
Education
1980: PhD, University of Tokyo, Biochemistry
1970: MS, University of Tokyo, Biochemistry
1968: BS, Tokyo University of Education, Botany
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Showing 3 of 3Education
University College Dublin
BSc and PhD, Pharmacology, cell and molecular biology, signal transduction and cancer, First Class Honors
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Showing 3 of 3A career history of fundamental discovery and translational research in immunology has guided Dr. Ware to identify new drug targets and develop novel therapeutics. Dr. Ware’s career in immunology and virology began in 1982 when he became a Professor at the University of California, Riverside’s Division of Biomedical Sciences. In 1996, he joined the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in San Diego as Head of the Division of Molecular Immunology. Professor Ware joined Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in 2010, serving as the Director of the Infectious and Inflammatory Disease Center and Adjunct Professor of Biology at the University of California at San Diego. He is currently the Director of the Laboratory of Molecular Immunology, which focuses on discovering and designing immunotherapeutics.
As an educator, he taught medical students immunology and virology. He trained over 60 postdoctoral fellows and graduate students who chose careers in research in academic and pharmaceutical science, patent law, or teaching.
Dr. Ware advises scientific panels and review boards for the National Institutes of Health and serves on the scientific advisor boards for the Allen Institute for Immunology and the Arthritis National Research Foundation. Scientific advisor with several biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies on immunotherapy for cancer and autoimmune diseases using innovative approaches to target discovery and drug development.
Dr. Ware’s research program is dedicated to unraveling the intricate intercellular communication pathways that govern immune responses. His work, which centers on cytokines in the Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF) Superfamily, particularly those that regulate cell survival and death in response to viral pathogens, spans the domains of cancer,autoimmune and infectious diseases.
At Sanford Burnham Prebys, Dr. Ware is pivotal in promoting the translation of the faculty’s scientific discoveries. His efforts have led to the Institute’s reputation as a productive and preferred partner in collaborations with Pharma, including multi-year research and drug development projects with Eli Lilly and Avalo Therapeutics. His success translating fundamental knowledge into rational drug design has led to three novel therapeutics targeting inflammatory pathways, currently in clinical trials.
Education
- 1981-1982: T cell Immunology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute of Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA. Tim Springer and Jack Strominger, advisors.
- 1979-1981: Biochemistry of Complement, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX. W Kolb, advisor
- 1974-1979: PhD in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from the University of California, Irvine; Gale Granger, PhD mentor.
Honors and Recognition
- Distinguished Fellow, American Association of Immunologists
- Honorary Lifetime Membership Award International Cytokine and Interferon Society
- Hans J. Muller-Eberhardt Memorial Lecture
- Biotech All Star, San Diego Padres Award
- “Pillars of Immunology” discovery of the Lymphotoxin-b Receptor, published in Science
- Outstanding Alumnus, Ayala School of Biological Sciences, University of California, Irvine
- National MERIT Award R37 (10 years), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, NIH
- National Research Service Award, NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship
Paper: Tumor Necrosis Factor Superfamily in Innate Immunity and Inflammation
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Showing 4 of 4Targeting the TNF and TNFR superfamilies in autoimmune disease and cancer.
Epitope topography of agonist antibodies to the checkpoint inhibitory receptor BTLA.
Realigning the LIGHT signaling network to control dysregulated inflammation.
Randomized, double-blind, controlled trial of human anti-LIGHT monoclonal antibody in COVID-19 acute respiratory distress syndrome.
Kristiina Vuori earned her MD and PhD at University of Oulu, Finland. After completion of internship and residency, she received postdoctoral training at the Institute and was appointed to faculty in 1996. Dr. Vuori was selected as a PEW Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences in 1997. She has been co-Director of the Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics, housed at Sanford Burnham Prebys, since its inception in 2005. She was appointed Deputy Director of the Institute’s NCI-Designated Cancer Center in 2003, and Director of the Cancer Center in 2006. In 2008, she was appointed Executive Vice President for Scientific Affairs at Sanford Burnham Prebys. She was President of the Institute from 2010 to 2022.
Charles Spruck earned his BS in Biology at UCLA and PhD in Molecular Biology at the University of Southern California. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla and was recruited to the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center in San Diego as an Assistant Professor in 2003. He joined Sanford Burnham Prebys in 2010.
Education and Training
2003: Post-doc, The Scripps Research Institute
1986: PhD, University of Southern California
1995; BS, University of California at Los Angeles
Prestigious Funding Awards / Major Collaborative Grants
NIH/NCI DoD BCRP CBCRP TRDRP
Honors and Recognition
ACS Scholar