15th most frequently cited in biochemistry and biology in the last decade

		CancerCARE News Archive Featured in the Media JeffNEWS Kimmel Cancer Center

With the recent arrival of renowned cell biologist Michael P. Lisanti, M.D., Ph.D., the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson in Philadelphia can lay claim to the 15 th most cited scientist in biochemistry and biology in the scientific literature in the last decade.

Few cell biologists can point to research with such wide-reaching implications as Dr. Lisanti, who is an expert in the field of caveolae and caveolin proteins. These proteins, which play important roles in cell communication, are also involved in the development of a number of diseases and conditions, such as cancer, atherosclerosis, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and muscular dystrophy.

Dr. Lisanti, professor of cancer biology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, comes to Jefferson from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, where he was professor of molecular pharmacology and medicine.

“The recruitment of Dr. Lisanti and his team of scientists brings further prestige to
Jefferson and the Kimmel Cancer Center,” says Richard Pestell, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Kimmel Cancer Center and professor and chair of cancer biology at Jefferson

Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University. “Dr. Lisanti is internationally renowned for his discoveries--particularly in the role of caveolae--in cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, muscular dystrophy, obesity and diabetes. His recent discoveries in breast and prostate cancer provide key new targets for therapy. Dr. Lisanti will enrich the cancer center’s scientific and clinical programs during this exciting time of growth and revitalization.”

Dr. Lisanti’s fascination with the basics of cell communication belies a deep commitment to understanding how this process goes awry in cancer. His research has focused primarily on caveolin-1, the most abundant and widespread of the caveolin proteins. His work provides the best evidence to date that caveolin-1 functions as a tumor suppressor in mammalian cells. Recently, his group was among the first to create a mouse strain lacking the caveolin-1 gene, establishing a model system to study the role of the loss of caveolin-1 in breast cancer development.

His team’s work with caveolin has also taken its share of surprising turns. While he and his co-workers have made inroads into understanding caveolin’s role as a tumor suppressor--the absence of which can contribute to cancer, caveolin can also be an oncogene. That is, they have found in mouse studies that when the gene is turned on more than it should be, it can help drive the development of prostate cancer.

“At Jefferson, we will continue to work on caveolin with a focus on cell transformation, tumorigenesis and metastasis,” Dr. Lisanti says. “We will bring an expertise in doing mouse models of cancer, for using those models to study tumor development and metastases and for developing novel therapeutics.”

Dr. Lisanti began his professional academic life when he was named a fellow at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, MA from 1992 to 1997. He was a visiting scientist at The Rockefeller University in New York in 1992 as well. In 1997, he became assistant professor of molecular pharmacology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and was appointed associate professor the next year, a title he held until his promotion to professor in 2001.

A recipient of many awards and honors, Dr. Lisanti won a NIH FIRST Award in 1993. In 1997, he received both the Charles E. Culpeper Foundation—New Faculty Award and the Mathers Charitable Foundation Grant. He was given the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Research Foundation Award, Melini Award, in 1998. In 1999, he received the Albert Einstein Research Achievement Award, and in 2001, he was given The Bensley Award from the American Association of Anatomists.

A member of a number of prestigious professional and scientific societies, including the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the American Society for Cell Biology, Dr. Lisanti has lectured widely, and has more than 235 publications in such journals as Cell, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Her serves on the editorial board for such publications at the American Journal of Physiology and the American Journal of Pathology, and as a reviewer for journals such as Cell, Nature and Science.

In 1985, he received a bachelor of arts degree in chemistry from New York University and took doctor of medicine and doctor of philosophy degrees in cell biology and genetics from Cornell University Medical College in New York in 1992 and 1991, respectively.