Whitehead’s Weinberg among those earning cancer research group’s highest honor

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) is including Whitehead Institute Founding Member Robert Weinberg in its inaugural class of Fellows of the AACR Academy.

AACR announced today that is establishing the AACR Academy “to recognize and honor distinguished scientists whose major scientific contributions have propelled significant innovation and progress against cancer.” The first class includes 106 Fellows—a number equal to AACR’s years in existence—chosen in what AACR describes as a rigorous peer review process. Subsequent classes will include 11 new Fellows annually.

“Our Board of Directors made the decision to establish the AACR Academy as a mechanism for recognizing scientists whose contributions to the cancer field have had an extraordinary impact,” says Margaret Foti, Ph.D., M.D., chief executive officer of the AACR. “Membership in the Fellows of the AACR Academy will be the most prestigious honor bestowed by the American Association for Cancer Research.”

Weinberg, who is also a professor of biology at MIT and Director of the Ludwig/MIT Center for Molecular Oncology, will be inducted next month at AACR’s annual meeting in Washington, DC. Other Fellows of the AACR Academy with ties to Whitehead Institute include: Nobel Laureate Aaron Ciechanover (Technion-Israel Institute of Technology), a former postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Whitehead Founding Member Harvey Lodish; Tyler Jacks (David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT), a former postdoctoral researcher in Weinberg’s lab; and Nobel Laureate Phillip Sharp (MIT), a member of the Whitehead Institute Board of Directors.