Anirban Maitra, Director of the Perlmutter Cancer Center and Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Professor of Pathology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, shared on LinkedIn:
“Met a cancer research legend today at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai – Stuart Aaronson, whose discovery of ErbB2 amplification in human breast cancer and its transforming properties eventually led to targeted therapies against this oncogene.
Stu also discovered HGF as the cognate ligand for the MET receptor, amongst many other pivotal discoveries while at the National Cancer Institute (NCI).”
Stuart Aaronson’s Legacy in Molecular Oncology
Stuart Aaronson’s work helped establish the importance of HER2/ErbB2 signaling in cancer biology. NCI highlights his demonstration that the HER2 gene can drive normal cells toward aggressive cancer-like behavior-work that contributed to the biological foundation for subsequent HER2-targeted therapies.
Aaronson was also a co-author of the landmark 1991 Science study identifying the c-MET proto-oncogene product as the receptor for hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), helping define another signaling pathway that later became important in targeted cancer research.
Mount Sinai has recognized Aaronson for major contributions to molecular oncology and oncogene signaling, including discoveries that helped connect growth-factor biology with cancer development and therapeutic targeting.
Read more articles about HER2-Targeted Therapy on OncoDaily.