Joseph Schlessinger, PhD
William H. Prusoff Professor of Pharmacology

Mentee:
Elijah Paintsil, MD

Dr. Schlessinger, the chair of pharmacology, discovered a new code for activation of membrane receptors and for information flow from the cell surface into intracellular compartments. He also demonstrated how dysfunction in membrane receptors can cause cancer and other diseases. For the past 27 years, he has been analyzing the mode of action of growth factor receptors and the intracellular signaling pathways that are activated in response to growth factor stimulation. His pioneering studies provided the conceptual foundation and paved the way for discovering new families of drugs used for the treatment of many cancers and other diseases caused by dysfunctions in particular enzymes. Specifically, this research led Sugen, a company founded by Schlessinger and Axel Ullrich from Germany, to development of the drug Sutent/SU11248 for treatment of renal cancers and gastrointestinal stromal tumors, including those resistant to one of the only available medications used to treat the disease. Sutent was approved by the FDA in 2006, the same year Schlessinger was co-awarded the prestigious $1 million Dan David Prize alongside cancer researcher John Mendelsohn, MD.