Michelle M. Le Beau has received the 2020 AACR-Margaret Foti Award for Leadership and Extraordinary Achievements in Cancer Research.
Le Beau is director of the Cancer Cytogenetics Laboratory and Arthur and Marian Edelstein Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago, and director of the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center, a position she has held since 2004.
She is receiving the award in recognition of her leadership, direction, and strategic vision at University of Chicago Medicine.
Le Beau is an expert on the molecular analysis of recurring chromosomal abnormalities in human leukemias and lymphomas, the correlation of specific abnormalities with morphological and clinical features, and the development of risk-adapted therapy.
Through her work, she has been instrumental in deepening the understanding of the onset and progression of numerous hematological malignancies, including implicating deletions on chromosomes 5 and 7 as oncogenic drivers of therapy-related myeloid leukemias. Her current work focuses on the analysis of the genes on chromosome 5 that are involved in therapy-related AML; the development and characterization of mouse models harboring AML driver mutations; the identification of secondary mutations and genetic pathways essential to leukemogenesis; and the application of mouse models for preclinical testing of potential therapeutics.
The Margaret Foti Award for Leadership and Extraordinary Achievements in Cancer Research was established in 2007 to recognize a champion of cancer research whose leadership and extraordinary achievements in cancer research have had a major impact on the field.
