Robert Allan Weinberg (born November 11, 1942) is a biologist, Daniel K. Ludwig Professor for Cancer Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), director of the Ludwig Center of the

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

, and

American Cancer Society The American Cancer Society (ACS) is a nationwide voluntary health organization dedicated to eliminating cancer. Established in 1913, the society is organized into six geographical regions of both medical and lay volunteers operating in more than ...

Research Professor. His research is in the area of

oncogenes An oncogene is a gene that has the potential to cause cancer. In tumor cells, these genes are often mutated, or expressed at high levels.

and the genetic basis of human cancer. Robert Weinberg is also affiliated with the

Broad Institute The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (IPA: , pronunciation respelling: ), often referred to as the Broad Institute, is a biomedical and genomic research center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U ...

and is a founding member of the

Whitehead Institute Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research is a non-profit research institute located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States that is dedicated to improving human health through basic biomedical research. It was founded as a fiscally indepen ...

for Biomedical Research. Weinberg and

Eric Lander Eric Steven Lander (born February 3, 1957) is an American mathematician and geneticist who served as the 11th director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and Science Advisor to the President, serving on the presidential Cabinet. Lan ...

, a colleague at M.I.T., are co-founders of Verastem, a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing drugs to treat cancer by targeting

cancer stem cells Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are cancer cells (found within tumors or hematological cancers) that possess characteristics associated with normal stem cells, specifically the ability to give rise to all cell types found in a particular cancer sampl ...

Career

Weinberg earned SB in Biology from

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

in 1964 and PhD in Biology from the same institute in 1969. He was an instructor in biology at

Stillman College Stillman College is a private historically black Presbyterian college in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It awards the Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees in 17 disciplines/majors housed within three academic schools (Arts and Sciences, Busi ...

Tuscaloosa, Alabama Tuscaloosa ( ) is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west-central Alabama, United States, on the Black Warrior River where the Gulf Coastal and Piedmont plains meet. Alabama's fifth-largest city, it had an estimated population of 1 ...

(1965–1966), and a postdoc in Ernest Winocour's lab at the

Weizmann Institute of Science The Weizmann Institute of Science ( he, מכון ויצמן למדע ''Machon Vaitzman LeMada'') is a public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, 14 years before the State of Israel. It differs from other Israeli unive ...

(1969–1970) and in

Renato Dulbecco Renato Dulbecco ( , ; February 22, 1914 – February 19, 2012) was an Italian–American virologist who won the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on oncoviruses, which are viruses that can cause cancer when they infect anima ...

's lab at the

Salk Institute for Biological Studies The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is a scientific research institute located in the La Jolla community of San Diego, California, U.S. The independent, non-profit institute was founded in 1960 by Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vacci ...

(1970–1972). He joined MIT in 1972.

Research

He is best known for his discoveries of the first human

oncogene An oncogene is a gene that has the potential to cause cancer. In tumor cells, these genes are often mutated, or expressed at high levels.

Ras Ras or RAS may refer to: Arts and media * RAS Records Real Authentic Sound, a reggae record label * Rundfunk Anstalt Südtirol, a south Tyrolese public broadcasting service * Rás 1, an Icelandic radio station * Rás 2, an Icelandic radio stati ...

and the first

tumor suppressor gene A tumor suppressor gene (TSG), or anti-oncogene, is a gene that regulates a cell during cell division and replication. If the cell grows uncontrollably, it will result in cancer. When a tumor suppressor gene is mutated, it results in a loss or red ...

Rb^p. 371-381, which is partially documented in

Natalie Angier Natalie Angier /ænˈdʒɪər/ (born February 16, 1958 in the The Bronx, Bronx, New York City) is an American nonfiction writer and a science journalist for ''The New York Times''. Her awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting in 1991 ...

′s book, Natural Obsessions, about her year spent in Weinberg's lab. In the late 20th century, advances in genetics led to the discovery of over one hundred cancer cell types. Cancer cells were noted for their bewildering diversity. It was hard to identify the principles that cancers had in common. He and

Douglas Hanahan Douglas Hanahan (born 1951) 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 currently member ...

wrote the seminal paper, "

The Hallmarks of Cancer The hallmarks of cancer were originally six biological capabilities acquired during the multistep development of human tumors and have since been increased to eight capabilities and two enabling capabilities. The idea was coined by Douglas Hanah ...

", published in January 2000, that gave the six requirements for one renegade cell to cause a deadly cancer: In 2011, they published an updated review article entitled "Hallmarks of cancer: the next generation". Weinberg is well known for both his cancer research and for his mentorship of many eminent scientists, including

Tyler Jacks Tyler Jacks is a David H. Koch Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a long-time HHMI investigator, and Founding Director of the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, which brings together biol ...

William C. Hahn

Clifford Tabin Clifford James Tabin (born 1954) is chairman of the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. Education Tabin was educated at the University of Chicago where he was awarded a BS in physics in 1976. He went on to graduate school at Mas ...

and

Cornelia Bargmann Cornelia Isabella "Cori" Bargmann (born January 1, 1961) is an American neurobiologist. She is known for her work on the genetic and neural circuit mechanisms of behavior using ''C. elegans'', particularly the mechanisms of olfaction in the worm. ...

. He is currently studying cancer cell metastasis. He is also the author of the textbook ''The Biology of Cancer'' published by

Garland Science Garland Science was a publishing group that specialized in developing textbooks in a wide range of life sciences subjects, including cell biology, cell and molecular biology, immunology, protein chemistry, genetics, and bioinformatics. It was a su ...

, as well as two important accounts intended for a wider audience: ''One Renegade Cell: How Cancer Begins'' (1999) (Science Masters Series); and ''Racing to the Beginning of the Road: The Search for the Origin of Cancer'' (1996). , Weinberg has an

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with obvious success indicators such as winn ...

of 209 according to

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes p ...

Awards and honors

In 1985, Weinberg received the Golden Plate Award of the

American Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet o ...

. Weinberg won the

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 ...

and the

Keio Medical Science Prize The Keio Medical Science Prize (Japanese: 慶應医学賞) is a Japanese prize in medical sciences. Introduction The prize is awarded to scientists who made significant contributions to the field of medical sciences or life sciences. And these con ...

in 1997. In 1999, he received the

Albert Einstein World Award of Science The Albert Einstein World Award for Science is an annual award given by the World Cultural Council "as a means of recognition and encouragement for scientific and technological research and development", with special consideration for researches ...

in recognition of his valuable and pioneering contributions in the field of Biomedical Sciences and for his productive trajectory related to the genetic and molecular basis of neoplastic disease. He was elected to 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 ...

in 2000. He obtained the

Wolf Prize in Medicine The Wolf Prize in Medicine is awarded annually by the Wolf Foundation in Israel. It is one of the six Wolf Prizes established by the Foundation and awarded since 1978; the others are in Agriculture, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics and Arts. The P ...

in 2004 (shared with Roger Y. Tsien), and he is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. In 2007 he received an honorary doctorate degree in commemoration of

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

from

Uppsala University Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public university, public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the List of universities in Sweden, oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in opera ...

. He is a member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special ...

since 1992. In 2009 he was presented the Hope Funds Award in Basic Research. In 2013 he was awarded the $3 million

Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences is a scientific award, funded by internet entrepreneurs Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan of Facebook; Sergey Brin of Google; entrepreneur and venture capitalist Yuri Milner; and Anne Wojcicki, one of the ...

for his work and in 2021 he received the

Japan Prize is awarded to people from all parts of the world whose "original and outstanding achievements in science and technology are recognized as having advanced the frontiers of knowledge and served the cause of peace and prosperity for mankind." The P ...

Retractions

To this day Weinberg has had five research papers retracted where he is listed as a co-author. The retractions include one paper in Cell, one in Cancer Cell, two in Genes & Development and one in Cancer Research. The reasons given for the retraction of one paper (DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2009.03.04) include: "Falsification/Fabrication of Data" and "Manipulation of Results".

References

External links