Douglas Hanahan
American biologist
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Douglas Hanahan (born 1951)[1] is an American biologist, professor, and Director Emeritus of the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research at EPFL (École polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is a Distinguished Scholar at the Lausanne branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research.
"DH5-Alpha Cell" named after him
University of California, San Francisco
Douglas Hanahan | |
|---|---|
Hanahan in 2017 at EPFL | |
| Born | 1951 (age 74–75) Seattle, Washington |
| Alma mater | Harvard University |
| Known for | "The Hallmarks of Cancer" "DH5-Alpha Cell" named after him |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) University of California, San Francisco |
Education and early career
Hanahan received a bachelor's degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1976 and earned his Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard University in 1983 as a Harvard Society of Fellows member.[2]
He conducted research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, first as a graduate student and later as a faculty member. During his tenure, he developed methodologies to facilitate the molecular cloning of genes in E. coli, a foundational tool in life sciences.[3]
Research
Hanahan pioneered the genetic engineering of transgenic mouse models to study human cancer. In collaboration with Judah Folkman, he discovered the “angiogenic switch,” a process that enables new blood vessel formation and facilitates tumor progression towards malignancy.[4]
Dr. Hanahan spent twenty-one years at the University of California San Francisco, in the UCSF Diabetes Center prior to EPFL in 2009. During that time (2000), Hanahan co-authored a seminal paper with Robert Weinberg entitled The Hallmarks of Cancer, which proposed a conceptual framework for understanding the complexity of cancer development.[5] This was followed by updated reviews in 2011[6] and 2022.[7]
He was instrumental in founding the Swiss Cancer Center Leman (SCCL), the first comprehensive cancer center in Switzerland. Hanahan also played a key role in developing the Agora Translational Cancer Research Center, a collaborative facility designed to advance cancer research and therapy.
Awards and honors
- 2025 Pezcoller Foundation Award in Cancer Research
- 2023 Elected to the Royal Society of London
- 2020 Distinguished Scholar, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research
- 2014 Fellow of the AACR Academy
- 2014 AACR Lifetime Achievement Award in Cancer Research
- 2010 Elected Member, European Molecular Biology Association
- 2009 Elected Member, National Academy of Sciences
- 2008 Elected Member, National Academy of Medicine
- 2007 Elected Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- 1993 Grand Prize for Biology, National Cancer Association of France
See also
- Swiss Cancer Centre
- Hallmarks of Cancer