Charles L. Sawyers
Physician-scientist known for targeted cancer drugs (ABL inhibitors in leukaemia, antiandrogens in prostate cancer); his UCLA lab helped show that PTEN-deficient tumour cells depend more on mTOR
Chair, Human Oncology & Pathogenesis Program, Memorial Sloan Kettering (since 2006) · HHMI Investigator (since 2002) · earlier at UCLA, Jonsson Cancer Center · MD, Johns Hopkins (1985) · Lasker–DeBakey Clinical Award (2009)
Portrait: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Charles Sawyers is the senior author of NES2001, done in his lab at UCLA. The study treated isogenic mouse cells and human cancer lines of known PTEN status with the rapamycin analogue CCI-779 (temsirolimus). Cells and tumours lacking PTEN were blocked preferentially, and the drug reversed the extra tumour growth caused by active Akt, placing mTOR downstream of Akt in these models. He is also a co-author of POD2001 from Ramon Parsons' group, a companion paper in the same PNAS issue showing that an mTOR inhibitor reduced neoplasia in Pten+/- mice.
Sawyers studied at Princeton and Johns Hopkins (MD, 1985) and became an HHMI investigator in 2002 while at UCLA. Since 2006 he has chaired the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering. His work contributed to the ABL kinase inhibitors imatinib and dasatinib for chronic myeloid leukaemia, recognised with the 2009 Lasker–DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, and he co-discovered the antiandrogens enzalutamide and apalutamide for prostate cancer.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2001 | A | Enhanced sensitivity of PTEN-deficient tumors to inhibition of FRAP/mTOR NES2001 Senior author: PTEN-null cells and tumours are preferentially blocked by the mTOR inhibitor CCI-779. |
| 2001 | A | An inhibitor of mTOR reduces neoplasia and normalizes p70/S6 kinase activity in Pten+/- mice POD2001 Co-author: an mTOR inhibitor reduces neoplasia and normalises S6 kinase activity in Pten+/- mice. |
Co-authors in the Atlas
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Charles L. Sawyers.
- John Blenis Showed early on that rapamycin blocks S6 kinase, then worked out how mTORC1 drives cell growth through its two main translation targets, S6K1 and 4E-BP1. His lab also found, in parallel with the Sabatini lab, that mTORC1 phosphorylates Grb10, a feedback brake on insulin signalling
- Katrina Podsypanina First author of the study showing that an mTOR inhibitor reduced tumour growth and S6 kinase activity in Pten+/- mice; later moved from cancer genetics to tumour immunology
- Ramon Parsons Cancer geneticist whose Columbia group identified the PTEN tumour suppressor gene in 1997, in parallel with another team; his lab then studied what goes wrong downstream of PTEN loss, including mTOR
Every researcher with a profile →
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