Alan D'Andrea

Alan D'Andrea
Born September 28, 1956
Pasadena, California
Residence United States
Nationality American
Fields Cancer Research, Oncology, Hematology
Institutions Harvard Medical School, Dana Farber Cancer Institute
Alma mater Harvard University, Harvard Medical School
Notable awards Award of Merit, Fanconi Anemia Scientific Symposium, 2002; E. Mead Johnson Award for Research in Pediatrics, Society for Pediatric Research, 2001; Excellence in Research Award, American Academy of Pediatrics, 1997; Scholar Award, Leukemia Society of America, 1995; Markey Scholar Award, 1990

Alan D. D'Andrea is an American cancer researcher and the Alvan T. and Viola D. Fuller American Cancer Society Professor of Radiation Oncology at Harvard Medical School. D'Andrea's research at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute focuses on chromosome instability and cancer susceptibility. He is currently the director of the DFCI Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory and the Director of the Clinical Gene Therapy Center at Boston Children's Hospital.

As a postdoctoral fellow at the Whitehead Institute of Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, D'Andrea cloned the erythropoietin receptor, a protein known to rescue red blood cell progenitors from apoptosis.[1]

Research

The D’Andrea laboratory at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute is interested in the molecular events involved in normal blood cell formation and in the molecular cause of leukemia and other cancers. His laboratory examines molecular signaling pathways and the resulting DNA damage response in mammalian cells. These pathways are often disrupted in cancer cells, accounting for chromosome instability and increased gene mutation frequency in human tumors. D'Andrea and his colleagues have identified and cloned a family of cytokine-inducible deubiquitinating enzymes that regulate hematopoietic cell growth by controlling the ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis of intracellular growth regulatory proteins.[2]

The practical application of D'Andrea's research includes genetic diseases in humans. His primary focus is the molecular pathogenesis of human chromosome instability syndromes: Fanconi anemia (FA), ataxia-telangiectasia (AT), and Bloom syndrome (BS). Most notably, Fanconi anemia is an autosomal-recessive cancer susceptibility disorder characterized by developmental defects and increased cellular sensitivity to DNA crosslinking agents.

Background

D’Andrea received his MD in 1983 from Harvard Medical School, residency training in pediatric at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and fellowship training in pediatric hematology-oncology at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Children’s Hospital Boston. He completed a research fellowship at the Whitehead Institute of Biomedical Research and joined the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in 1990.

Awards

Personal

DD'Andrea attended the Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey and Harvard University. He lives in Winchester, Massachusetts with his wife, two children, and two dogs. He is the brother of Laura Tyson, an American economist and former Chair of the US President's Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton Administration.

References

  1. ↑ "AACR honors Alan D'Andrea Scientist studied rare cancer, which led to new insights into how cancer cells repair their DNA". Harvard Gazette. April 16, 2012. Retrieved September 4, 2012.
  2. ↑ "Alan D. D'Andrea, M.D., Receives the 52nd Annual AACR G.H.A. Clowes Memorial Award". Newswire.com. 2012-03-26. Retrieved September 4, 2012.
  3. ↑ "Alan D. D'Andrea, M.D., Receives the 52nd Annual AACR G.H.A. Clowes Memorial Award". Newswire.com. 2012-03-26. Retrieved September 4, 2012.

External links

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