Scientists honored for contributions to cancer fight

Susan Band Horwitz, Ph.D., will be awarded the Society's Medal of Honor for Clinical Research. Dr. Horwitz is an internationally recognized molecular pharmacologist who has made major contributions to our understanding of antitumor drugs. Her pioneering research in identifying the mechanism of action of Taxol®, as an inhibitor of cell division due to its interaction with microtubules, led to clinical trials of this drug in the mid-1980s. Taxol® is now involved in the first line of treatment in many cancers, including ovarian, breast and non-small cell lung cancer. The drug has been administered to more than one million patients. Dr. Horwitz is currently Distinguished Professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in New York where she serves as the Falkenstein Professor of Cancer Research and Co-Chair of the Department of Molecular Pharmacology.

Throughout her long career, Dr. Horwitz has authored more than 250 publications that have enhanced our knowledge of antitumor drugs, including mechanisms of drug resistance. Among the numerous awards Dr. Horwitz has received are the Cain Memorial Award from the American Association for Cancer Research; the ASPET Award for Experimental Therapeutics; the Chester Stock Award from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; and the Warren Alpert Foundation Award from Harvard Medical School. Dr. Horwitz has been elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, to the National Academy of Sciences and to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. She served as president of the American Association for Cancer Research in 2002 and 2003.

Jon M. Huntsman, founder and chairman of Huntsman Corporation- a global manufacturer and marketer of differentiated chemicals, and one of the nation's most generous philanthropists- will receive the Society's Medal of Honor for Cancer Philanthropy. Mr. Huntsman and his wife, Karen, have raised or personally contributed over $600 million to the fight against cancer. In 1995, the Huntsman family joined in an unparalleled scientific quest to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer at its source by donating $100 million to establish the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah. In 2000, Huntsman pledged an additional $125 million to fund ongoing research and to construct a Clinical Research Hospital adjacent to the Institute. A groundbreaking event in October of this year launched the expansion of the Huntsman Cancer Hospital, which will be twice its current size upon the project's completion in 2011. In addition to these contributions, Mr. Huntsman regularly visits patients while they receive chemotherapy.

These donations, along with subsequent gifts and grants, have helped the Huntsman Cancer Institute build a team of world-renowned specialists and provide treatment services unmatched in the region and numbered among the best in America. A survivor of three types of cancer himself, Huntsman lost his mother, father and stepmother to the disease.