Earlier this month, I had the tremendous honor of being asked to discuss Senator Ted Kennedy’s remarkable contributions to biomedical science at an event celebrating The Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate that was organized by The Massachusetts healthcare and life sciences communities. Following are my comments:

As I studied the record of the Senator, it became apparent that few national leaders have had as significant impact on the current state of biomedical science and healthcare delivery. He has been foresighted in his leadership by championing inclusion of the disadvantaged into the healthcare system and at the same time strengthening biomedical research that advances the range and quality of treatments available.

Senator Kennedy was first elected to the Senate 46 years ago in 1962. Relating this tenure to my own experiences in science, he was a Senator when I graduated from high school and has shaped many of the opportunities in my life, even though at the time I was unaware of it.

The center of biomedical research and innovation in healthcare in the world is now in Massachusetts. This epicenter has grown over the 40 years of Senator Kennedy’s tenure and will create a large part of the future of healthcare. The foundations of this epicenter, with the addition of biotechnology in the 70s, were the universities such as Harvard, MIT, BU, Tufts, BC, and others—and the great hospitals such as MGH, Brigham and Women’s, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Children’s Hospital, and many others.

Senator Kennedy’s leadership in encouraging advances in biomedical research began with his election as Chairman of the Senate Health Subcommittee in 1971. In this capacity, he helped pass the National Cancer Act that established the modern National Cancer Institute and quadrupled the funds supporting cancer research. Senator Kennedy stated his support of biomedical research at the time as: “The conquest of cancer is a special problem of such enormous concern to all Americans.” In relating his feelings to those of the country, he further stated, “We can quote statistics. But I think every one of us in this body, and most families across the country have been touched by the disease one way or another.” I am sorry to say that this has certainly been the case for the Senator’s family.

The National Cancer Act has been important for biomedical research across the country and particularly here in Boston. It greatly strengthened the already-strong cancer research and treatment programs at the Dana Farber, MGH, and Children’s Hospital. In addition, this act radically changed the course of research in life sciences at MIT. For example, Professor Salvador Luria, subsequently a Nobel Laureate, convinced MIT to support his application to NCI for funds to establish a new center dedicated to research into fundamental aspects of cancer. David Baltimore took leadership in recruiting the staff of the center; this included yours truly, who joined MIT in 1974.

Research from the Center has been important in the development of several highly successful new targeted therapies. Perhaps more important in terms of the region, the success of MIT’s Center for Cancer Research either directly or indirectly led to the establishment of the Whitehead Institute, the Broad Institute, and the Koch Institute. These institutes, along with MGH and Harvard, have shaped the Kendall Square area with a large concentration of biotechnology companies. There are similar stories about the importance of the National Cancer Act at other universities and hospitals in Massachusetts. This act passed with Senator Kennedy’s leadership clearly initiated a revolution in cancer research and treatment across the country.

Funds for cancer research have grown over the intervening years with Senator Kennedy’s support ,and we pray that he will benefit from these advances in his current struggle. Although no one is satisfied with current treatments of cancer, significant progress has been made. The rate of age-dependent death due to cancer has fallen over the past decade by 25 percent. There are more promising new drugs and treatments under development now than at any time in history. We are making significant …Next Page »

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(A commencement address to graduates of Eberly College of Science, Penn State University, delivered on May 17, 2008)

It is an honor to be asked to address you on this wonderful day of promise for an exciting future. As a Professor for the past 35 years, I understand the important achievement this day represents for this graduating class of Eberly College of Science. Led by a dedicated faculty, you have worked hard for four years and now are leaving this nurturing place for new challenges. This is fortunate, as the country intensely needs new graduates in science and mathematics. We are faced with major challenges about energy and the environment, continued advances in healthcare and its availability, and the increasing international interdependence of the world’s economies and wellbeing that only young people with your talents and training can surmount.

I do not want to give you the impression that you are through learning. You have just attained the tools to begin to learn. Almost all of the knowledge you use throughout your life, you will learn on your own in the future. Whether this occurs in graduate or professional schools or out in the marketplace, you will have to continue to acquire new knowledge and skills. Finding environments that provide opportunities and people who stimulate these learning processes is a major part of decision-making in your immediate future.

Over 40 years ago, I stood in a similar position as you are standing today. I had just obtained my PhD degree in theoretical chemistry from the University of Illinois and was faced with a career decision. I decided, after reading many journals and textbooks, that I wanted to become a scientist studying the then-new field of molecular biology. I had essentially no training in biology, but I did find a mentor at Caltech, Professor Norman Davidson, who was also making the transition from chemistry to molecular biology—and in that environment, I was able to rapidly learn the essentials. Since then, I have done research in cancer biology, virology, cell biology, immunology, and RNA chemistry, not to mention interactions with biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. In each of these cases, I had to again become a student, learning the essentials of the new field. There is nothing I enjoy more than learning something new and sharing this new knowledge with colleagues. When people ask me about the secret to my success, I answer that it is my curiosity that drives me to learn something new and use this knowledge to create something useful.

You are at a transition where decisions that influence the course of your career are about to be made. I have been advising students at MIT for many years, and each coming year seniors wander into my office seeking advice about possible career paths. We talk about possibilities. but I make it a rule not to ever strongly influence their decision on career choices. This decision has to be their own. I believe young students have a more valid vision of the future than I do. This philosophy, from the perspective of the student, is similar to a popular reframe during the 1960s: “never trust anyone over thirty with important decisions about your life.”

However, there is one aspect about the future that I do emphasize. Most people, particularly young people, underestimate the rate of change of society and science that will occur over the course of their career. Thus, in face of this uncertainty, how can one try to make wise decisions? The answer is that though the rate of change may be difficult to judge, you probably can see the major forces that will drive change globally over the next decades. These include the challenges mentioned above—increasing cost of energy, climate change, increasing demands for medical care—but I would add to these the rapid advances in technology and science, and particularly life sciences. These forces are important to recognize since they indicate where change will occur, and wherever there is “change” there is the opportunity to become the leader of this change.

As a means of illustrating the rate of change in science and technology, it is interesting to remember that a little over 50 years ago, Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA, thus founding the field of molecular biology. Thirty years ago, we discovered how to synthesize new genes and use recombinant DNA to engineer organisms that could produce human insulin and other pharmaceuticals. A great alumnus of Penn State, and a personal friend, Professor Paul Berg of Stanford University, largely led this advancement in science. I had the pleasure a few years ago to present the inaugural lecture in the Berg Auditorium on your campus. Paul was present that day, making it special.

A great challenge of the next decade is managing the cost and availability of healthcare while encouraging …Next Page »

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This morning, MIT announced the creation of the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. David Koch, a co-owner of Koch Industries with his brother Charles (both are graduates of MIT), made a very generous gift to the university to establish the new Institute. The word “Integrative” in the name of the Koch Institute is the key to the vision of its establishment. It speaks volumes about where cancer research is heading, and I’m really excited to be a part of it.

The Koch Institute is committed to integrating engineering and cancer research to create new methods to understand, diagnosis, and treat the disease of cancer. At MIT, as is the case in most of the country, engineering has not extensively interacted with the segment of cancer research that is focused at the cellular level. This is not to say that there has not been outstanding engineering at MIT and other places addressing cancer. For example, my MIT colleague Robert Langer has designed novel materials to allow the slow release of drugs for treatment of brain cancer and has fashioned nanoparticles that can carry drugs to specific tumor cells. Engineering researchers have also developed nanoparticles called quantum dots that are being used to image tumor cells. These exciting developments are but early indicators of a much larger range of possibilities if engineering becomes more closely aligned with research into the genetic, molecular, and cellular changes now known to cause human cancers.

All 12 current members of the Center for Cancer research at MIT, which is led by Tyler Jacks, will join an equal number of engineers, including Robert Langer, in a new building that will house the Koch Institute. In fact, engineers and cancer biologists will jointly occupy each floor in the building in order to maximally stimulate interactions. The most valuable collaborations arise when students and fellows in laboratories meet informally, frequently in the wee hours of the morning, waiting for experiments to end.

The Center for Cancer Research—of which I have been a member since 1974—has a great tradition of breakthrough discoveries about the molecular and cellular processes that cause cancer. Many of these discoveries have subsequently generated new treatments. For example, the first oncogene was isolated from a human cancer cell in the Center. A gene now targeted by the antibody Herceptin to treat breast cancer was identified as an oncogene in the Center. And Center researchers also discovered the leukemia-causing enzyme that is targeted by the drug Gleevec, one of the new generation of oncogene-specific cancer drugs. Over the short three decades of the Center’s existence, five of its associated faculty members have received Nobel Prizes.

The new Koch Institute represents what some have coined the “third revolution” in healthcare research—the combination of engineering technology and methods with rapidly expanding research on the molecular and cellular processes causing disease. The previous two revolutions are the development of molecular biology, beginning with the discovery by Watson and Crick of the structure of DNA, and the genome revolution capped by the completion of the sequence of the human genome. The promise of this third revolution is the rapid translation of new molecular and cellular knowledge into diagnosis and treatment through engineering approaches—and the more rapid advancement of cellular research through new nanoscale quantitative methods and measurements developed by engineers.

It is interesting to think about these two cultures, cell biology and engineering. Historically, the former has continued to seek new insights about the fundamental workings of normal and cancer cells. The search was focused on new knowledge because it offered new possibilities for disease prevention and treatment. The examples I cited above confirm the validity of this great tradition. In contrast, engineers commonly focus on more short-term objectives, often solving a problem with the knowledge at hand. Thus, they are comfortable working with partially defined systems and using empirical but quantitative models to design new means of modifying the system. The modern tools of engineering—including computation, nanoscale fabrication, high-resolution imaging methods, and an ever expanding set of materials—offer the promise of transforming the future of cancer research to both expand its power and shorten the time between discovery and new treatments. This is a major objective of the new Koch Institute. It is a worthy objective and will generate future generations of young scientists and engineers trained in the best tradition of cellular research and engineering.

The Koch Institute joins a number of other Institutes associated with MIT and located in Kendall Square. These include the Whitehead Institute, McGovern Institute, Picower Institute, and Broad Institute. The Koch Institute will be located immediately next to the Department of Biology in the Koch Building—named for the same generous alumnus—and across Main Street from the Broad Institute. The Koch Institute is another important commitment by MIT to the future of the vibrant environment in Kendall Square.

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…is coming soon.

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