Eminent cancer researcher visits campus as Wheaton Distinguished Fellow

World renowned cancer researcher Judah Folkman, M. D. , whose discoveries about how tumors grow has opened one of the most significant ares for study in oncology, will speak with students on Monday, Feb. 3, as a Wheaton Distinguished Fellow.

Dr. Folkman will speak in the Hindle Auditorium in the Science Center at 7:30 p.m. His lecture is free and open to all.

He is the director of Surgical Research at Boston's Children's Hospital and the Andrus Professor of Pediatric Surgery and Professor of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School.

[You can read more about Dr. Folkman and his work at Scientific American and Nova online--Editor].

Wheaton's Distinguished Fellows program, in keeping with the college's emphasis on combining a challenging liberal arts education with real-world experience, seeks to expose Wheaton students to the perspectives of outstanding leaders for insight about how academic disciplines are applied successfully in the worlds of business, law, journalism, medicine and science. The Fellows each meet with selected Wheaton courses in addition to delivering public lectures on the campus.

Wheaton students are among the many researchers worldwide now engaged in angiongenic study as a result of Dr. Folkman's pioneering work. The Wheaton team, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, works under the direction of Professor of Biology Ed Tong. Dr. Folkman will visit the lab and other areas of the science center during his time on campus.

As a student at Harvard medical School Dr. Folkman worked in Dr. Robert Gross' laboratory where he developed the first atrio-ventricular implantable pacemaker, for which he received the Boylston Medical Prize, the Soma Weiss Award, and the Borden Undergraduate Award in Medicine.

After earning his medical degree in 1957, he went to the National Naval Medical Center, where he worked on silicone rubber implants, initiating controlled release technology that led to the development of Norplant, a time-released contraceptive used worldwide.

While at the naval center, he theorized that solid tumors are angiogenesis-dependent - dependent on new blood vessel growth - and predicted the existence of natural angiogenesis inhibitors. He went on to develop almost all of the methodology for the field. His laboratory purified the first of 14 angiogenic molecules, and he discovered the first natural angiogenesis inhibitor as well as two other families of inhibitor molecules.

Dr. Folkman's exceptional achievements have been recognized by numerous national and international awards. In 1990 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Institute of Medicine. He holds honorary degrees from seven universities.

The Wheaton Distinguished Fellows Program was inaugurated in 1996. Past Wheaton Distinguished Fellows have included William The Honorable Margaret Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts; Kenneth Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corp.; Liz Walker, news anchor at WBZ-TV Channel 4; Jerry Schubel, president of the New England Aquarium; and Matthew Storin, former editor of the Boston Globe.