Research

The Division's basic, translational and clinical research enterprise is characterized by a fundamental commitment to original inquiry.

Truly original inquiry leads to fundamental discoveries. For example, Dr. Charles Huggins, one of 11 Nobel Laureates the Division has either trained or had on its faculty, discovered that cancer is not anarchic by proving that prostate cancer is hormonally regulated and thus treatable (cancer biology); Dr. Janet Rowley discovered chromosomal breakpoints and realignments, pioneering the field of cancer genetics and laying the basis for major recent advances in the treatment of leukemia (molecular genetics); Dr. Elwood Jensen discovered the estrogen receptor and paved the way for modern breast cancer treatment (bioorganic chemistry); Dr. Eugene Goldwasser discovered erythropoietin, whose isolation has had dramatic impact on treatment of chronic renal disease (biochemistry); Dr. Wen-Hsiung Li discovered patterns of DNA sequence evolution, whose application to the molecular clock established the theoretical foundations for molecular phylogenetics and evolutionary genomics (evolutionary biology).

These products are generated by a relatively small faculty (compared to other academic medical centers) that places a premium on excellence, not size. In fact, when you correct for size, and measure quality output on a per capita basis (product by investigator, not in aggregate), you find that the Biological Sciences Division is 5th in the country in NIH funding/per faculty member, 1st in the country in the number of Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators per capita, and 5th in the country in the number of National Academy of Sciences members per capita.

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