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Springer Award

ICCNS-SPRINGER Award 2017 Recipient

ICCNS-SPRINGER Award 2017 Recipient

Professor Meenhard Herlyn

‬ Dr. Meenhard Herlyn is Caspar Wistar Professor for Melanoma Research and Director of the Melanoma Research Center at The Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, as well as Founding President of the Society for Melanoma Research. Born and educated in Germany, Dr. Herlyn received his D.V.M. at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Hanover in 1970 and went on to receive a D.Sc. in medical microbiology at the University of Munich in 1976. That same year he came to The Wistar Institute as an associate scientist, where he worked in the emerging field of monoclonal antibodies, a technology that formed the basis of a portion of today’s new targeted therapeutics.

In 1981, Dr. Herlyn became an assistant professor and established a laboratory that is, today, one the largest and best-known research groups on the study of melanoma biology. Current major efforts include the ability to model the microenvironment of normal and diseased human tissue through 3-D artificial skin, providing his laboratory with a unique insight into cancer research. His laboratory also seeks to further define the various signaling pathways that work in cancer cells in order to discover new opportunities to inhibit cancer growth through targeted therapeutics. Since therapy is increasingly guided by the genetic aberrations in tumors, Dr. Herlyn and colleagues are developing combinations of compounds that take into account the genetic signature of tumors, with the specific goal of individualized cancer therapy.

Another major effort of his laboratory is the study of therapy resistance and tumor dormancy. Tumor cells can become dormant in primary tumors or at any time after metastatic dissemination and can persist in the dormant state for many years, allowing tumors to resist treatment. Dr. Herlyn’s working hypothesis is that defined tumor subpopulations are central to dormancy and drug resistance due to their slow turnover and their non-responsiveness to growth signals. His efforts seek to define how tumor cells escape dormancy for growth, invasion, and metastasis, and how to best develop strategies for therapy. Because of the significance of immunotherapy in treatment of melanoma patients, the laboratory has developed two models that closely mimic the conditions in humans with the ultimate goal of combining targeted and immune therapies.

Dr. Herlyn has over 500 peer-reviewed publications, over 85% of which are on melanoma. He has presented at dozens of national and international congresses and meetings, and has received accolades from prestigious organizations such as the Melanoma Research Foundation, American Skin Association, American Cancer Society, Society for Melanoma Research and more. He serves on numerous national and international editorial and scientific advisory boards.

On the occasion of the ICCNS-Springer Award, Dr. Herlyn will give a presentation entitled:‪

‬Understanding the biology of stem cells and melanocytes to develop new strategies for melanoma therapy‪

SYNOPSIS:We have developed a series of in vitro and in vivo models to elucidate the functions of genes associated with normal skin homeostasis and melanoma progression and metastasis formation. Using cDNA and RNA interference constructs and libraries in viral vectors, we have investigated the crosstalk of genes associated with cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions, intracellular signaling and transcriptional regulation. Three-dimensional skin with a ‘dermis’ containing fibroblasts and neural crest-like stem cells and ‘epidermis’ of keratinocytes and melanocytes mimic the skin environment, which we begin to populate also with inflammatory and immune cells. The 3-D models allow us to investigate mechanisms of transformation for melanocytes and stem cells, which are obtained from patients with high susceptibility for melanoma.

Work on tumor subpopulations lead to the development of a dynamic model of tumor maintenance, in which cells remained quiescence for prolonged periods of time until signals from the microenvironment activate them for proliferation. Invasion may occur even during dormancy, a cellular state of high resistance to any conventional therapy. The laboratory has been active in the development of targeted therapies in melanoma using small molecule inhibitors specific for kinases in key signaling pathways for proliferation and survival and of target genes that play critical roles in melanocyte development and tumor invasion and metastasis. We are developing groups of melanomas amendable to therapy with combinations of three or more drugs to also kill those cells that survive even double agent therapies.

Major emphasis is on intrinsic (innate) and acquired resistance in melanoma, in which cells escape primary therapy but can be successfully eliminated with inhibitors that are specifically targeting subpopulations of cells. Signaling inhibitors are also combined with immunotherapeutics using for the in vivo studies mice humanized with CD34+ hematopoietic stem cells from cord blood or induced pluripotent (iPS) cells and HLA-matched or autologous patient-derived xenografts (PDX), respectively. Thus, our work spans basic biological to translational investigations with defined clinical outcome. Strong emphasis is placed on multi-disciplinary collaborations with intra- and inter-institutional research groups.‪‪‬

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Springer Award

ICCNS-SPRINGER Award 2019 Recipient

ICCNSSpringer

Award 2019 Recipient

Professor Cynthia Kenyon

‬ Pr. Cynthia Kenyon

Cynthia Kenyon helped to pioneer the field of aging, showing that the aging process is plastic and subject to regulation.  Her work with long-lived mutant roundworms stimulated an intensive study of the molecular regulation of aging, and led to the realization that a conserved endocrine network regulates the aging process throughout the animal kingdom.  Dr. Kenyon was on the UCSF faculty for many years, and is currently Vice President of Aging Research at Calico Life Sciences, a Google/Alphabet company.
Summary of the presentation to be given on October 21, 2019
Lifespan and aging were once thought to be immutable: we just wear out like old cars. This paradigm has been overturned completely by molecular genetic experiments initiated in the roundworm C. elegans and now extended to many species. Changing specific genes or cells can extend healthy lifespan dramatically while postponing age-related disease. In this lecture, the history of these discoveries and the possibilities they create for the future will be discussed. Promising new research frontiers, such as the immortality of the germ lineage, will be described as well.

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Homepage News

The 11th ICCNS workshop was held in Nice

REGISTRATION

For the first time this year,

the 11th International Workshop on the CCN family of Genes

Nice, October 20-24, 2022

celebrated the widening of ICCNS scope to all

Cell Communication Networks factors.

***********

The 11 th workshop was opened to all aspects of cell communication and signaling factors biology.

Special sessions accomodated abstracts reporting new results outside of the original CCN family topics that constitute the workshops’ core

The scientific report appeared in :

the Journal of Cell Communnication and Signaling

Volume  17, pages 7–11 (2023)

Contact : administration@ccnsociety.com

Categories
Springer Award

ICCNS-Award

ICCNS-Award

About the Award

One goal of the International CCN Society (ICCNS) is to to facilitate the diffusion of scientific information and promote contacts with other Scientific Societies.

As a first step along this line of action, the Journal of Cell Communication and Signaling (JCCS) has been created as the official journal of the ICCNS.

In an effort to broaden the scientific scope of the International Workshop on the CCN family of Genes, Professor Bernard Perbal, President of the ICCNS and Peter Butler, a former Editor at Springer, have agreed upon the creation of an award to be given to a scientist in recognition of his/her scientific merit and contribution to his/her field of interest.

In order to trigger interactions between scientists working in the CCN field with those working on related biological and biomedical areas it has been agreed that the recipient of the ICCNS award would be offered the possibility to present his main achievements in the frame of an International CCN workshop. Since 2019, Springer stopped sponsoring this event.

The Award presented by the ICCNS covers the full cost of meeting registration fees.

The name of the recipient and the topic of the Educational Session will be communicated by the President of the ICCNS.

2022 Recipient

Professor Lester Lau will be the recipient of the eigth ICCNS Award.

2019 Recipient

Professor Cynthia Kenyon was the recipient of the seventh ICCNS-SPRINGER Award.

2017 Recipient

Professor Meenhard Herlyn was the recipient of the sixth ICCNS-SPRINGER Award.

2015 Recipient

Professor Judith Campisi was the recipient of the fifth ICCNS-SPRINGER Award.

2013 Recipient

Professor Carlo Croce was the recipient of the fourth ICCNS-SPRINGER Award.

2012 Recipient

Professor Robert Baxter was the recipient of the third ICCNS-SPRINGER Award.

2010 Award

Professor Edward Calabrese was the recipient of the second ICCNS-SPRINGER Award.

2008 Award

Professor Paul Bornstein was the recipient of the first ICCNS-SPRINGER Award.