Prof. Joseph Schlessinger, a Brief Biography
Dr. Joseph Schlessinger is the present chairman of the department of Pharmacology at Yale University, one of the premier universities in the US. Previously he acted as the chairman of the department of Pharmacology at New York University and the director of the NYU Skirball research facility.
Dr. Schlessinger is regarded as the father of Signal Transduction, an area of research crucial for cancer research (and other fields). This research has already resulted in him winning numerous awards, including the prestigious Dan David award (in 2006), and has led to the development of several drugs for treating various cancers.
PubMed, the premier resource for academic publications contains 450 publications for Dr. Schlessinger. In 2003, the British newspaper The Guardian created a list of the greatest scientists of our times, or the “Giants of Science”, and placed Schlessinger at number 14, a great honor.
In addition to his academic research, Prof. Schlessinger actively participates and starts biotechnology companies. His first company, which he co-founded with Dr. Axel Ullrich) was named Sugen, and developed a drug called Sutent for treating renal cell carcinoma and gastrointestinal stromal tumor. This drug was approved by the FDA in 2006 in less than 6 months and is the first time that the FDA has made an exception and had approved a new drug for two separate conditions concurrently. The drug was so potent it was considered immoral not to give it to ill patients.
Later on Dr. Schlessinger co-founded Plexxikon, a company which attempts, by using novel ways, to quickly create numerous types of drugs for treating multiple diseases.
It is our hope that Prof. Schlessinger continues doing this ground-breaking research, as we all may gain from it one day, it gives hope to ill people, and cam be said to make the world a healthier place.
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