Judah Folkman

Judah
Folkman
Year
2001
Subject
Life Science
Award
Benjamin Franklin Medal
Affiliation
Harvard University Medical School | Boston, Massachusetts
Citation
For founding of field of angiogenesis research

Soon after medical school, Judah Folkman performed an experiment whose intriguing results suggested to him that for a tumor to become a cancerous growth, it must have an unlimited supply of new blood vessels. This was a significant observation; because it was known that new blood vessel growth, or neovascularization or angiogenesis, as doctors call it, rarely occurs in fully formed organs or adult individuals except in the healing of wounds.

Thus was born the field of angiogenesis research in which Folkman, over many years, demonstrated that animals, including people, have naturally occurring substances which either promote or inhibit the formation of new blood vessels. That is, there are both angiogenic agents and antiangiogenic agents (angiogenesis inhibitors). Cancers overproduce their own angiogenic agents. Many natural angiogenesis inhibitors as well as synthetic ones are now undergoing testing in anti-cancer trials.

Already, the field of angiogenesis research has transformed the way in which doctors diagnose and treat cancer. Folkman showed that a pair of natural angiogenesis inhibitors can completely cure a certain human cancer transplanted into a mouse; however, he does not expect angiogenesis inhibitors alone to end the scourge of cancer but expects them to work cooperatively with other known cancer treatments.

Information as of April 2001