2008 BIOCOM Life Sciences Heritage Award Recipient
John C. Reed

Past Recipients of the BIOCOM Life Sciences Heritage Award

Ronald M. Evans, 2006
Ronald M. Evans joined the the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in 1978 and has held the March of Dimes Chair in Developmental and Molecular Biology since 1998. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine in 1974 and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Rockefeller University in New York. Evans is an authority on hormones' roles in normal physiologic regulation as well as their roles in disease.

The major achievement of Evans's lab was the discovery of hormone receptors, a large family of molecules that respond to hormones that help control sugar, salt, calcium, and fat metabolism; affect general health and well-being; and contribute to the treatment of disease. The receptors Evans discovered are primary targets in the treatment of breast cancer, prostate cancer, and leukemia, as well as osteoporosis and asthma. Evans's studies have also led to the discovery of a new hormone that appears to be the molecular trigger controlling the formation of fat cells. This hormone and its chemical derivatives represent one of the newest and most important advances in understanding problems arising from excess weight and in the potential treatment of adult onset (type 2) diabetes.

Dennis A. Carson, 2005
Dennis Carson, the winner of the first BIOCOM Life Sciences Heritage Award, became director of the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Medical Center in 2003. He is also a professor of medicine at the UCSD School of Medicine, associate dean for cancer affairs, and holder of the Chugai Pharmaceutical Chair in Cancer. He earned his medical degree in 1970 at Columbia University and received postdoctoral training at the Salk Institute, the National Institutes of Health, and UCSD. He has published nearly 450 scientific papers, is an inventor on more than 60 U.S. and international patents, and has founded four companies.

Carson is perhaps best known for his landmark work in developing a new agent called 2-chlorodeoxyadenosine, or 2-CdA, for the treatment of hairy cell leukemia. This drug, now marketed as Leustatin, is the treatment of choice for this disease and has resulted in long-term, complete remissions in about 75 percent of patients, often after just a single infusion. It is also effective in other lymphoid cancers, multiple sclerosis, and psoriasis. Carson's goal is to establish the Moores Cancer Center as a world leader in early cancer detection. He was recently inducted into the National Academy of Sciences.