Wafik S. El-Deiry: Honoring Mikhail Blagosklonny, Who Courageously Battled Lung Cancer and Influenced Scientific Publishing and Cancer Research
Wafik S. El-Deiry, Associate Dean for Oncologic Sciences at the Warren Alpert Medical School, shared on Linkedin:
”This evening, a number of close friends and colleagues came together in Boston for a few hours to remember and pay tribute to Mikhail Blagosklonny, who left us a few weeks ago after courageously battling lung cancer with brain metastases for two years.
Misha had a remarkable and rare intellect that impacted on thought in the field of aging and cancer over the last 30 years. His impact on us was not only in science, but also in scientific publishing as well as the way he conducted himself as a humble, thoughtful, and kind human being with a smile on his face.
I was fortunate to know him for almost 30 years since he worked in my laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) for a couple of years in the mid 1990’s after coming from NCI where he was a Fogerty Fellow.
In the lab, he was creative, gifted as a scientist both intellectually and technically and was intense in his pursuit of answers.
Over the last couple of decades we interacted in our work in scientific publishing (Cancer Biology and Therapy, Cell Cycle, and Oncotarget) and in recent months as one of the physicians who cared for him.
I can say that his knowledge of science and medicine was profound. As this relates to cancer I think he knew more than any of his physicians and came up with strategies that ultimately prolonged his life much longer than would have been expected.
Some of this was also due to input by Razelle Kurzrock and later through the WIN Consortium in cancer personalized medicine MTB where he personally attended the discussion.
It was an honor to know him for the last 3 decades and I for one will miss him and will always remember him.
I am proud of what he accomplished, will personally follow through on what he started and achieved with Oncotarget, and will honor his legacy.”
Wafik S. El-Deiry, MD, PhD, FACP, FRSM, is the Associate Dean for Oncologic Sciences at the Warren Alpert Medical School and Director of the Legorreta Cancer Center at Brown University and Director of the Joint Program in Cancer Biology at Brown University and affiliated hospitals. He is the Editor in Chief at Oncotarget. Dr. El-Deiry discovered p21(WAF1) as a p53 target gene, cell cycle inhibitor, and tumor suppressor that explained the mammalian cell stress response. Dr. El-Deiry’s research is focused on mechanisms of therapy resistance with major efforts in drug discovery and development.
-
ASCO Annual Meeting
May 30 - June 4, 2024
-
Yvonne Award 2024
May 31, 2024
-
OncoThon 2024, Online
Feb. 15, 2024
-
Global Summit on War & Cancer 2023, Online
Dec. 14-16, 2023