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Award

From receptor research to cancer drug development: The impact of RTKs

Joseph Schlessinger receives the ASBMB Herbert Tabor Research Award
Arti Dumbrepatil
Nov. 26, 2024

When Joseph Schlessinger was a grad student at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, he was interested in biophysics.

“Then I realized that I wanted to study cells,” Schlessinger said, “so I did a postdoc at Cornell in the laboratories of Elliot Elson and the late Watt Webb where fluorescence correlation spectroscopy and photobleaching applications were developed to study receptor diffusion on cell membranes.”

Joseph Schlessinger
Joseph Schlessinger

As he began to read about receptors, he found he was more interested in their biology than studying their motion.

“You can see, everything was sort of a relatively short-term plan, which turned out to be very productive in a way,” said Schlessinger, who now studies tyrosine phosphorylation, a mechanism for signal transduction in cells, and develops therapeutic drugs antagonizing the activity of tyrosine kinases in cancer and other diseases.

After stints at the Weizmann Institute and New York University, Schlessinger, who was born in former Yugoslavia at the end of World War II and moved to Israel as a child, joined the faculty at Yale University School of Medicine in 2001.

Schlessinger’s lab discovered how growth factor receptors with tyrosine kinase activity (receptor tyrosine kinases, or RTKs) are activated by dimerization and how they regulate cellular processes.

The lab’s studies provided the foundation to target cancer therapies against RTKs and downstream signaling intermediates, leading to the development of new cancer drugs.

Biotech companies founded by Schlessinger and collaborators have developed four Food and Drug Administration–approved cancer drugs among the 50 kinase inhibitors the lab developed for clinical use in treating cancer.

“In life, do not have a plan — just have fun learning new things,” Schlessinger said. “Throughout my career, I was just having fun with experiments. I think this makes it much more beautiful. I always go where the science takes me. And I always like to be ignorant of new topics I start letting science direct my research.”

For his work, the ͵ÅÄ͵¿ú and ͵ÅÄ͵¿ú Biology will present Schlessinger with the 2025 ASBMB Herbert Tabor Research Award for outstanding, innovative accomplishments in biological chemistry and molecular biology and contributions to the community of scientists.

Turning new cancer targets into drugs

Cancer cells can evade cell death signals. Cell communication involves signaling pathways and membrane receptors. Receptor tyrosine kinases, or RTKs, identified as transmembrane receptors for insulin and epidermal growth factor, promote cell survival and signaling. When genetic mutations or overexpression dysregulate protein tyrosine phosphatase activity, cancer develops.

As a result of this oncogenic addiction, receptors have become critical targets for several cancer therapeutics.

Joseph Schlessinger’s lab studies the transmembrane receptor family known as the RTKs.

“For the last 40 years, we have done everything possible to understand the mechanism of action of these receptors,” Schlessinger said. “We cloned, purified and solved their structures to pinpoint mutations blocking faulty signaling for structure-based drug design to treat cancers.”

Blocking RTK activation is a major strategy in developing anticancer drugs. Schlessinger and colleagues formed Sugen Inc. in 1991 and Plexxikon in 2001. Sugen’s drug Sutent for kidney and stomach cancers was approved by the FDA in 2006.  

An experimental compound, PLX4032 by Plexxikon in partnership with Roche, is in clinical trials to compare its safety and effectiveness against the current standard treatment for melanoma and to find the highest dose that can be administered for colorectal cancer without causing severe side effects.

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Arti Dumbrepatil

is a freelance science writer and communicator. With her academic training plus expertise in science communication and writing, she demystifies and transforms complex, jargon-filled science into enjoyable and comprehensible content that resonates with a diverse audience. She is an ASBMB Today volunteer contributor.

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