Leland H. Hartwel life and biography

Leland H. Hartwel is former president and director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington. He shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his contributions to the understanding of the cell cycle through years of studying yeast, together with Paul Nurse and Tim Hunt, whose research focused on the cyclins and other aspects of cell division.

Studying Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the same yeast used for brewing beer or baking bread, Leland H. Hartwell showed how cells grow and multiply. He discovered and explained cell-division-cycle (CDC) genes, which are involved in cell-cycle control, and showed that their cycle sometimes includes pauses, now called checkpoints, which allow time for damaged deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) to be repaired. His research, conducted in 1971, has expanded the understanding of normal and abnormal cell growth, and earned Hartwell the 2001 Nobel Prize in Medicine. His honors, and the Nobel cash stipend of about $1-million, were shared with Tim Hunt and Paul Nurse, both of whom worked at the London Research Institute.

In 1998 he received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. On July 9, 2003, Washington Governor Gary Locke awarded the Medal of Merit, the state's highest honor, to Hartwell. He is also a recipient of the Komen Brinker Award for Scientific Distinction.

Hartwell is the Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board at the Canary Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to developing new technologies for the early detection of cancer. In September 2009, it was announced that Hartwell will join the faculty of Arizona State University as the Virginia G. Piper Chair of Personalized Medicine and co-director of the Biodesign Institute's new Center for Sustainable Health with Dr. Michael Birt.

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