Researcher nabs $1M Gotham Prize for cancer idea

A professor at the California Institute of Technology is walking away with the $1 million Gotham Prize for an original approach to killing cancer cells. Alexander Varshavsky proffered the idea of a targeted molecular device that could enter a cell, examine it for DNA deletions specific to cancer and killing it if it meets the right profile.

"(It) involves, in a nutshell, the finding of a genuine Achilles Heel of cancer cells, i.e., their potentially vulnerable feature that won't change during tumor progression," said Varshavsky, who won the 2000 Lasker prize for the discovery of the gene ubiquitin.

The Gotham Prize is the brainchild of two hedge fund managers who wanted to reward original thinking for cancer research while highlighting the flat federal funding that has been provided to the NIH under the Bush administration. They teamed with Dr. Gary Curhan of Harvard Medical School to pick the winner.

- read the article in the Wall Street Journal

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