Dr. Lewis C. Cantley needs no introduction, especially to those in the science and research community. One of his most notable contributions to science is the discovery of key pathways in cancer and diabetes, that have led to the identification of novel treatments targeting defects in the identified pathways. Dr. Cantley obtained a degree in Chemistry from the Wesleyan College, West Virginia, and a PhD in Biophysical chemistry from Cornell University in 1975. He proceeded to Harvard University for his postdoctoral research which complimented in an Assistant Professor in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology position in 1978. He proceeded to become a professor of Physiology at Tufts University and returned to Harvard University as a Professor of Cell Biology in 1992. At Harvard, he progressed to become the chief of the Signal Transduction division and was one of the founding members of the systems biology department. In 2007 however, he moved to Beth Israel Deaconess Cancer Centre where he was appointed director, and subsequently to the faculty of Weill Cornell Medical college and New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Cornell, New York. He is currently the Margaret and Herman Sokol Professor and the director of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Centre, Cornell.
Following an impressive career, Dr. Cantley discovered a PI 3-Kinase (PI3K), a family of enzymes (proteins) which play roles in cell functions such as cell growth and proliferation. This signal transduction enzyme can alter (by phosphorylation) a component of phosphatidylinositol ring. This pathway, consists of PIK3CA (an oncogene – a gene which, when mutated (from its proto-oncogene form) can induce cancer and PTEN (a tumor suppressor gene – a gene which protects a cell from becoming cancerous). Both genes are linked to diabetes and cancer (via IGF1 and insulin).