Larchmonter Wins Prestigious Science Award

by Paula Eisenberg

Dr. James Darnell

( September 26, 2002) Dr. James Darnell, Larchmont resident and head of the Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology at The Rockefeller University, will be awarded the Albert Lasker Award for Special Achievement in Medical Science for his breakthrough explorations of RNA and gene regulation. The Lasker prize, worth $25,000, will be awarded at a luncheon at the Pierre Hotel in New York City tomorrow.

In addition to being a pioneer in the field of mammalian RNA research, Dr. Darnell co-authored two influential textbooks and has mentored over 100 Ph.D. students and post-doctoral fellows, many of whom have gone on to do important research in their own labs. His research into the ways cells respond to environmental signals has led to better understanding of the development of cancer and anemia. His lab discovered that when a protein called Stat3 is persistently activated, it can cause normal cells to behave like cancer cells. Although scientists already knew that Stat3 was often activated in several types of human cancer, including lymphomas, leukemias, breast cancer and certian head and neck cancers, Darnell and his group were the first to demonstrate that Stat3 activation could lead directly to tumor development.

Dr. Darnell joined the Rockefeller University faculty in 1974. His lab's progress in understanding the "molecular carpentry" of RNA laid the groundwork for the Nobel Prize-winning studies of RNA splicing by Phillip A. Sharp, Ph.D. "For more than 40 years, Jim Darnell has had a major impact on American science," Sharp said in his letter nominating Dr. Darnell for the Lasker Award.

The Lasker Awards have been recognizing scientific achievement since 1946.

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