APRIL 28, 2021, NEW YORK - Ludwig Cancer Research congratulates Ludwig Princeton Associate Director Eileen White and Ludwig Harvard investigator Alan D'Andrea on their election to the National Academy of Sciences. They are among 120 newly elected members and 30 international members elected to the Academy this year-a rare honor now bestowed on just 2,972 scientists worldwide for singular contributions to their fields of research.
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a private, nonprofit institution established under a congressional charter signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Together with the National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, the NAS provides independent advice on issues related to science and technology to the federal government and other organizations.
White has made major contributions to our understanding of programmed cell death, autophagy and metabolism in cancer. Her early work revealed roles of the p53 tumor suppressor in activating programmed cell death and suppressing cancer, and of the counteracting Bcl-2-related proteins in promoting cancer. More recently, her research has established that tumor cells activate autophagy-in which cells cannibalize their own proteins and organelles-to tolerate metabolic stress. Her laboratory is now developing approaches to target cancer cell autophagy for therapy. Aside from her post at Ludwig Princeton, White is the deputy director, chief scientific officer and associate director for basic research at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, and a distinguished professor of molecular biology and biochemistry at Rutgers University.
D'Andrea is best known for his landmark elucidation of how DNA damage and repair defects drive Fanconi anemia and his studies of the various protein complexes involved in the cell cycle, chromatin remodeling, DNA repair and the maintenance of genome stability. His lab continues to explore the role of proteins involved in the Fanconi anemia pathway in cancer and to identify biomarkers associated with the pathway that might be targeted for therapy. D'Andrea is the Fuller-American Cancer Society Professor at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Susan F. Smith Center for Women's Cancers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
