Susan M Rosenberg, Ph.D.

Professor
Department of Molecular & Human Genetics

Dr. Rosenberg’s nomination was based on her groundbreaking papers on the mechanisms of genomic instability and the ability of cells and organisms to evolve, on the harnessing of mechanistic understanding of evolution to combat cancer and infectious disease, and on creating new universal tools for genome-instability research in all organisms and potentially for therapy.

This work provided a beacon in the search for new targets for a new kind of anti-pathogen and anti-cancer therapy, which Dr. Rosenberg proposed: the development of drugs that would stop evolution of pathogens, making them susceptible to antibiotics without the evolution of resistance, and that would allow cancers to be treated with chemotherapies without provoking resistance.

Dr. Rosenberg’s nomination was based on the following publications:

Al Mamun AA, Lombardo MJ, Shee C, Lisewski AM, Gonzalez C, Lin D, Nehring RB, Saint-Ruf C, Gibson JL, Frisch RL, Lichtarge O, Hastings PJ, Rosenberg SM. Identity and function of a large gene network underlying mutagenic repair of DNA breaks. Science. 2012 Dec 7;338(6112):1344-8.

Shee C, Cox BD, Gu F, Luengas EM, Joshi MC, Chiu LY, Magnan D, Halliday JA, Frisch RL, Gibson JL, Nehring RB, Do HG, Hernandez M, Li L, Herman C, Hastings P, Bates D, Harris RS, Miller KM, Rosenberg SM. Engineered proteins detect spontaneous DNA breakage in human and bacterial cells. Elife. 2013 Oct 29;2:e01222.

Rosenberg SM, Queitsch C. Medicine. Combating evolution to fight disease. Science. 2014 Mar 7;343 (6175):1088-9.