French
DeutschDouglas Hanahan
Douglas Hanahan | |
|---|---|
 Douglas Hanahan in 2017 at EPFL | |
| Born | 1951 Seattle, Washington |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Harvard University |
| Known for | "The Hallmarks of Cancer" "DH5-Alpha Cell" named after him |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) University of California, San Francisco |
Douglas Hanahan (born 1951)[1] is an American biologist, professor, and Director Emeritus of the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research at EPFL (École polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is a Distinguished Scholar at the Lausanne branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research.
Education and Early Career
[edit]Hanahan received a bachelor's degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1976 and earned his Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard University in 1983 as a Harvard Society of Fellows member.[2]
He conducted research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, first as a graduate student and later as a faculty member. During his tenure, he developed methodologies to facilitate the molecular cloning of genes in E. coli, a foundational tool in life sciences.[3]
Research
[edit]Hanahan pioneered the genetic engineering of transgenic mouse models to study human cancer. In collaboration with Judah Folkman, he discovered the “angiogenic switch,” a process that enables new blood vessel formation and facilitates tumor progression towards malignancy.[4]
Dr. Hanahan spent twenty-one years at the University of California San Francisco, in the UCSF Diabetes Center prior to EPFL in 2009. During that time (2000), Hanahan co-authored a seminal paper with Robert Weinberg entitled The Hallmarks of Cancer, which proposed a conceptual framework for understanding the complexity of cancer development.[5] This was followed by updated reviews in 2011[6] and 2022.[7]
He was instrumental in founding the Swiss Cancer Center Leman (SCCL), the first comprehensive cancer center in Switzerland. Hanahan also played a key role in developing the Agora Translational Cancer Research Center, a collaborative facility designed to advance cancer research and therapy.
Awards and Honors
[edit]- 2023 Elected to the Royal Society of London
- 2020 Distinguished Scholar, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research
- 2014 Fellow of the AACR Academy
- 2014 AACR Lifetime Achievement Award in Cancer Research
- 2010 Elected Member, European Molecular Biology Association
- 2009 Elected Member, National Academy of Sciences
- 2008 Elected Member, National Academy of Medicine
- 2007 Elected Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- 1993 Grand Prize for Biology, National Cancer Association of France
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "Biography 34: Doug Hanahan (1951 - )". Dolan DNA Learning Center. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Retrieved 4 April 2011.
- ^ "Douglas Hanahan, PhD". Fellows of the AACR Academy. American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). Retrieved 28 March 2025.
- ^ Hanahan D (June 1983). "Studies on transformation of Escherichia coli with plasmids". Journal of Molecular Biology. 166 (4): 557–580. doi:10.1016/S0022-2836(83)80284-8. PMID 6345791.
- ^ Hanahan D, Folkman J (August 1996). "Patterns and Emerging Mechanisms of the Angiogenic Switch during Tumorigenesis". Cell. 86 (3): 353–364. doi:10.1016/s0092-8674(00)80108-7. PMID 8756718.
- ^ Hanahan D, Weinberg RA (January 2000). "The hallmarks of cancer". Cell. 100 (1): 57–70. doi:10.1016/S0092-8674(00)81683-9. PMID 10647931.
- ^ Hanahan D, Weinberg RA (March 2011). "Hallmarks of cancer: the next generation". Cell. 144 (5): 646–674. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2011.02.013. PMID 21376230.
- ^ Hanahan D (January 2022). "Hallmarks of Cancer: New Dimensions". Cancer Discovery. 12 (1): 31–46. doi:10.1158/2159-8290.CD-21-1059. PMID 35022204.