William Kaelin, from Dana Farber Institute in Boston, and two other scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine today for their work on the body’s awareness and response to the level of oxygen available to its cells, especially low levels of oxygen, hypoxia, and its effect of the pathogenesis of kidney cancer, as well as other diseases. This led him to study the transcription factor HIF-2 and to work with others on a HIF-2 inhibitor, which is now in clinical trials in kidney cancer. It is known that a mutation in the VHL gene releases HIF to allow VEGF to build blood vessels that supply nutrients to kidney tumors, a process called angiogenesis. We congratulate Dr. Kaelin on his award.

Bill Kaelin is both a medical doctor and a basic scientist and is a member of the Boston SPORE program, one of two SPORE programs that are funded by the National Cancer Institute, the other located at UTSW in Dallas. The NCI funds the  SPORE programs (Specialized Programs of Research Excellence) in the amount of $12.5 million over a five-year period to “promote collaborative, interdisciplinary translational cancer research”.