Tyler Jacks, fellow of the AACR Academy, received the the 2020 AACR Princess Takamatsu Memorial Lectureship.
Jacks is director of the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, co-director of the Ludwig Center at MIT, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.
He is being recognized for transforming cancer research and the development of therapeutic treatments through his advancement of genetically engineered mouse models and for his seminal discoveries related to oncogenes, tumor suppressor genes, cell death, and immune system regulation of tumor progression.
He and researchers in his laboratory have engineered mice to carry mutations in many genes known to be involved in human cancer, including tumor suppressor genes such as Rb; oncogenes such as K-Ras; and genes involved in oxidative stress, DNA damage and repair, and epigenetic control of gene expression.
The AACR Princess Takamatsu Memorial Lectureship is awarded to a scientist whose novel and significant fundamental scientific work has had or may have a far-reaching impact on the detection, diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of cancer, and who embodies the dedication of the princess to outstanding cancer research and advances that emanate from multinational collaborations.
