Press Room
Acceptance Message from Dr. Nicholas Lydon
I am truly honored to have been selected to receive this prestigious award. I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Japan Prize Foundation for recognizing Drs. Janet Rowley, Brian Druker and myself for our contribution to the field of molecularly targeted therapeutics.
In any successful drug discovery and development effort, teamwork between scientists with different skills is critical. I am honored to accept this award on behalf of myself, and my collaborators at Novartis who contributed to the discovery and development of imatinib.
The work that culminated in Imatinib was built on an outstanding foundation of basic scientific discoveries. The pioneering work of Nowell, Hungerford and Janet Rowley, and subsequent work from multiple groups on the Bcr-Abl protein kinase, established the pathogenesis of Philadelphia chromosome positive leukemia's. This body of research was the foundation for my translational work on Bcr-Abl kinase inhibitors. My interest in the protein kinase field started during my post-graduate time at the University of Dundee, where I was profoundly influenced by the work of Professor Sir Philip Cohen. The Cohen laboratory was studying the role of reversible protein phosphorylation in cell regulation. This experience sensitized me to the connection between deregulated protein kinases and cancer pathogenesis that was emerging from the oncogene field in the early 1980s.
Following my graduate education in Scotland, I moved to Ciba Geigy (now Novartis) in Switzerland, where I was given the opportunity to pursue my interest in developing protein kinase inhibitors. While at Ciba Geigy, I collaborated with the laboratory of Dr. Tom Roberts at the DFCI, Boston. This led to my first meeting with Brian Druker, and set the stage for our subsequent close collaboration on Imatinib. I would like to thank Brian for his tireless efforts during our work and subsequently, as the principle clinical investigator on the Imatinib clinical trials. This highly productive industry-academic translational medicine collaboration, which was started early in the development of Imatinib, was a major factor in its subsequent clinical success.
I consider myself extremely blessed in having been able to contribute to a field that has made a difference to cancer patients. I thank you for this great honor, and hope that it will inspire young scientists to work on translating basic discoveries into treatments that have an impact on patient's lives.
