Paul Alan Marks (August 16, 1926 – April 28, 2020) was a medical doctor, researcher and administrator. He was a faculty member and president at

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK or MSKCC) is a cancer treatment and research institution in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, founded in 1884 as the New York Cancer Hospital. MSKCC is one of 52 National Cancer Institute– ...

.Businessweek profile
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Background

Marks was born in

Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania Mahanoy City (pronounced MAHA-noy, also MA-noy locally) is a borough located southwest of Wilkes-Barre and 13 miles southwest of Hazleton, in northern Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. It is part of the Coal Region of Pennsylvania and is located ...

, in 1926, to Robert Marks and Sarah Bohorad. Marks attended Columbia College and

Columbia Medical School Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S) is the graduate medical school of Columbia University, located at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Founded i ...

. After completing postdoctoral research at the United States

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

and at the

Institut Pasteur The Pasteur Institute (french: Institut Pasteur) is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who invented pasteurization and vaccines fo ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, he joined the faculty at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. Marks served as dean of the Medical Faculty at Columbia University from 1970 to 1973.MSKCC Paul Marks Prize website
/ref> He was president and chief executive officer at Memorial Sloan Kettering from 1980 until 1999. Marks died at his Manhattan home from pulmonary fibrosis and lung cancer on April 28, 2020 at the age of 93.

Scholarly activities

Marks contributed to the fields of

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...

and

oncology Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with the study, treatment, diagnosis and prevention of cancer. A medical professional who practices oncology is an ''oncologist''. The name's etymological origin is the Greek word ὄγκος (''ó ...

. His recent work was focused on

histone deacetylase Histone deacetylases (, HDAC) are a class of enzymes that remove acetyl groups (O=C-CH3) from an ε-N-acetyl lysine amino acid on a histone, allowing the histones to wrap the DNA more tightly. This is important because DNA is wrapped around his ...

s (HDACs) and chemicals that interfere with HDAC enzymatic activities (

HDAC inhibitor Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDAC inhibitors, HDACi, HDIs) are chemical compounds that inhibit histone deacetylases. HDIs have a long history of use in psychiatry and neurology as mood stabilizers and anti-epileptics. More recently they are be ...

s or HDIs). Marks and others found that drugs such as

Trichostatin A Trichostatin A (TSA) is an organic compound that serves as an antifungal antibiotic and selectively inhibits the class I and II mammalian histone deacetylase (HDAC) families of enzymes, but not class III HDACs (i.e., sirtuins). However, there are ...

and

SAHA Saha may refer to: *Saha ionization equation, relating the densities of atoms, ions, and electrons in a plasma *Saha Airlines, an Iranian airline * Saha District, a district of the city of Busan, South Korea * Saha Station, a station of the Busan Me ...

(vorinostat) can serve as anticancer agents. Marks published more than 400 scientific articles and was the editor-in-chief of journals including the ''

Journal of Clinical Investigation The ''Journal of Clinical Investigation'' is a twice-monthly peer-reviewed medical journal covering biomedical research. It was established in 1924 and is published by the American Society for Clinical Investigation. Articles focus on the mechanism ...

'' and ''

Blood Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. Blood in the c ...

''.PTC Therapeutics

Honors and affiliations

*Member,

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

*Member,

Institute of Medicine The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), formerly called the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, E ...

*Recipient, President's

National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social scienc ...

*Fellow,

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

*Fellow,

The American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research

The

Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research The Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research is awarded by the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to recognize cancer researchers who are making significant contributions to the understanding of cancer or are improving the treatment of the disease t ...

was established by Memorial Sloan Kettering to honor Marks's contributions "as a distinguished scientist and leader". The prize has been awarded every two years since 2001.

Works

* editor,
Cancer Research in the People's Republic of China and the United States of America
' (1981)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Marks, Paul 1926 births 2020 deaths American geneticists American oncologists Columbia University faculty Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons alumni Scientists from New York (state) Fellows of the AACR Academy Columbia College (New York) alumni Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Journal of Clinical Investigation editors Presidents of the American Society of Hematology Members of the National Academy of Medicine