Closing Session:
The Lustgarten Luminary Award and Keynote Lecture
The Lustgarten Luminary Award ceremony will celebrate and honor Bert Vogelstein, MD, Professor of Oncology, HHMI Investigator, the Ludwig Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine with the Luminary Award for his visionary and groundbreaking contributions to pancreatic cancer research.
Dr. Vogelstein has led the Lustgarten Dedicated Lab at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD since 2019 and is one of the world's most cited scientists. His work was the first to elucidate the molecular basis of a common human cancer. Dr. Vogelstein's work on colorectal cancers forms the paradigm for much of modern cancer research, with profound implications for diagnostic and therapeutic strategies in the future.
He continued work in revolutionary research with a Lustgarten-funded genetic analysis of pancreatic cancer that was the most comprehensive genetic sequencing ever done for any cancer. This sequencing revealed that the disease is caused by a number of mutations acting together, rather than by a single gene. Furthermore, the research revealed that certain mutated pancreatic cancer genes are cancer-causing, while others are mutations that occur simply as a result of the cancer being formed. Most significantly, his findings demonstrated that the KRAS gene is mutated in nearly 100 percent of all pancreatic cancer tumors.
The Lustgarten Foundation is honored to present Dr. Vogelstein with the inaugural Lustgarten Luminary Award. Dr. Vogelstein personifies the revolutionary thinking that is pushing us ever nearer our shared goal of transforming pancreatic cancer into a curable disease.
