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Dartmouth Researcher Michael B. Sporn, M.D., Honored for Trailblazing Cancer Prevention Studies

Hanover, NH - Michael B. Sporn, M.D., a pioneering Dartmouth cancer researcher who championed the idea of stopping cancer before it starts, has been selected as the inaugural recipient of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)-Cancer Research Foundation of America (CRFA) Award for Excellence in Cancer Prevention Research.

The award, to be given annually, recognizes individuals worldwide who have made seminal contributions and stimulated new directions in cancer prevention research. Sporn, the Oscar M. Cohn '34 Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology and of Medicine at Dartmouth Medical School, conducts research through the Norris Cotton Cancer Center.

"Dr. Sporn is an international leader in the field of cancer prevention. His innovative work has paved the way for novel approaches to prevent or treat cancer," said Ethan Dmitrovsky, M.D., acting dean of Dartmouth Medical School and chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology. "Dartmouth Medical School is proud that Dr. Sporn has been recognized for his outstanding contributions to this important field by the American Association for Cancer Research and the Cancer Research Foundation of America."

"We need to think differently about cancer prevention, before people become sick," said Sporn. "There is still tremendous resistance to the idea of telling people they have early changes in their cells that could some day lead to invasive cancer. The emphasis should be on suppressing carcinogenesis, the development of cancer, before it becomes evident as invasive or metastatic cancer. We need a whole educational mission to get people to think about cancer before they go to the doctor, for example, with a lump in their breast."

Sporn is considered a visionary cancer researcher whose trailblazing investigations -- from molecular mechanistic studies to human interventions -- continue to lead to strategies with vast potential for reducing cancer incidence and death. His groundbreaking research and innovative thinking and writing, have fundamentally changed our ideas about the dynamics of cancer, how it begins and grows in a process known as carcinogenesis.

Perhaps one of his most significant contributions is the concept of chemoprevention, a term he coined in two landmark papers published in the early 1970s that laid the foundation for a new field in cancer prevention. His notion of chemoprevention -- using drugs, vitamins or other agents to prevent or delay cancer development -- challenged existing cancer therapy dogma by suggesting an approach other than the use of cytotoxic drugs to treat end-stage disease..

Sporn was among the first to exploit the chemopreventive potential of Vitamin A and its analogues, the retinoids (a term that he also coined), and he predicted the existence of receptors for these compounds years before their discovery. His laboratory also was the first to characterize transforming growth factor-beta (TGFbeta), demonstrate its role in controlling cell growth, and show loss of its function in certain tumor cells.

Recently, in collaboration with Gordon Gribble, Dartmouth College professor of chemistry, Sporn has focused on triterpenoids, compounds similar to retinoids that occur in hundreds of plants throughout the world and have promising biological and medicinal properties, as potential agents against cancer and other diseases.

That momentum also fuels the work of cancer prevention researchers at Dartmouth and beyond, according to Mark Israel, M.D., director of Norris Cotton Cancer Center. "Many chemopreventive interventions that are demonstrating feasibility and potential public heath importance in clinical trials today are based to some extent on discoveries from Dr. Sporn�s laboratory. The AACR-ACRF Excellence in Cancer Prevention Research award not only recognizes Dr. Sporn�s accomplishments, it brings greater public attention to the extraordinatry efforts and progress being made through laboratory-based cancer prevention efforts."

Sporn will present a lecture titled Chemoprevention: An Essential Approach for Control of Cancer--Some New Thoughts on this Problem during the first AACR Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Meeting, which will be held October 14-18, in Boston.

For more information, contact, Warren Froelich, at AACR: 215/440-9300 ext. 198 or e-mail: froelich@aacr.org.

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