Charles Sawyers

Charles L. Sawyers (physician-scientist)
Born	1959 (age 51–52)
Education	Johns Hopkins University
Profession	Physician
Institutions	Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Specialism	Oncologist
Research	Leukemia
Notable prizes	Lasker Clinical Award (2009)

Charles L. Sawyers is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a physician-scientist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. His work in the lab builds on the success of molecularly targeted cancer drugs with a focus on developing a new generation of treatment options for patients.

Sawyers holds the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Chair in Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program. Sawyers is the recipient of numerous awards including the 2009 Lasker Clinical Award,.^[1] was recognized for his part in advancing treatments for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), a relatively rare disease that strikes about 5,000 people per year in the United States. He played a key role in the development of imatinib (Gleevec) and dasatinib (Sprycel), two drugs that together have transformed CML from a fatal cancer into one that is nearly always treatable. Imatinib was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2001, and dasatinib was approved in 2006.

Using his clinical understanding of treating CML as well his expertise from studying it in the laboratory, Dr. Sawyers helped design the first clinical trial for imatinib, including selecting which patients were most likely to benefit from the drug. Along with Brian J. Druker of Oregon Health and Science University and Moshe Talpaz of The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Prior to Memorial Sloan-Kettering, Sawyers worked at UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center for nearly 18 years. He has a Bachelors Degree in history from Princeton University and an M.D. from Johns Hopkins University. He is married with two children and lives in New York City.

Memberships

National Academy of Sciences
Institute of Medicine of the National Academies

Awards

Lasker-Debakey Clinical Medical Research Award
Doris Duke Distinguished Clinical Scientist Award
Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award, American Association for Cancer Research
David A. Karnofsky Memorial Award, American Society of Clinical Oncology
Dorothy P. Landon–AACR Prize for Translational Cancer Research

References

1. ^ "2009 Lasker Awards Honor Trailblazers in Medical Research and Public Service". forbes.com. 2009-09-14. http://www.forbes.com/feeds/businesswire/2009/09/14/businesswire128984231.html. Retrieved 2009-11-11. ^{[dead link]}

External links

• Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center - Biography, Lab Description
• Howard Hughes Medical Institute - Biography, Lab Description
• Video:Speaking to Katie Couric regarding Stand Up 2 Cancer - @KatieCouric, CBS news, September 8, 2010
  • Video:On outsmarting cancer - @KatieCouric, CBS news, September 8, 2010
• Quoted: New Drugs Stir Debate on Rules of Clinical Trials, New York Times, September 19, 2010
• Quoted: What can we learn from curable cancers? Newsweek, September 7, 2010
• Video: Speaking with Charlie Rose: A discussion about Cancer Treatments, October 1, 2009

Persondata
Name	Sawyers, Charles
Alternative names
Short description	Physician-Scientist
Date of birth	1959
Place of birth	Nashville, TN
Date of death
Place of death