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About Fatih Uckun
Fatih Uckun is currently an active member of several prestigious organizations. Dr. Uckun works in conjunction with the National Cancer Institute’s Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer, contributing to the Biotargeting Working Group, the Preclinical Animal Models Working Group, and the Communications and Integration Working Group. He is a senior member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, an honor society for the Nation’s most prominent physician-scientists. Dr. Uckun also serves on several editorial boards of medical journals.
Dr. Uckun has also been recognized internationally with many awards throughout his career, including the Stohlman Memorial Award from the Leukemia Society of America, the third Pierce Immunotoxin Award, and the Health Sciences Award from the Sedat Simavi Foundation. He was also the first recipient of the Endowed Hughes Chair in Biotherapy at the University of Minnesota. . Graduating from Heidelberg University in Germany, Dr. Uckun completed his postdoctoral fellowship in immunology with the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Afterwards, he served as a resident in pediatrics and completed a second fellowship in pediatric hematology, oncology, and bone marrow transplantation.
During his time at the University, Dr. Uckun advanced from Associate Professor to tenured Full Professor in the Therapeutic Radiology-Radiation Oncology, Pediatrics and Pharmacology Departments. Dr. Uckun also served as President and Director of Parker Hughes Institute in St. Paul, Minnesota. Dr. Uckun’s research has appeared in more than 400 peer-reviewed publications, including articles published in Nature, Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, Immunity, and the New England Journal of Medicine.
Dr. Uckun holds patents to over 83 different inventions. He recently lectured at the Second International Congress on Nutrition and Cancer in Antalya, Turkey, in 2009. When he is not teaching or conducting research, Dr. Uckun enjoys spending time with his family, reading, and playing sports. He currently resides in Glendale, California.
Fatih Uckun's Affiliations
Fatih Uckun's Publications
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Dr. Fatih Uckun Discusses New Discoveries to Overcome Radiation Resistance, By Dr. Fatih Uckun
October, 2011
B-lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common cancer occurring in children and adolescents. Despite having received intensive chemotherapy, some patients have recurring disease, known as relapsed ALL. For these individuals, especially those who relapse within 3 years, the prospect of long-term survival is poor. The standard approach to treating relapsed patients has been additional chemotherapy to achieve a second remission followed by very intensive treatment that could include very chemotherapy, total-body irradiation (TBI), and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. However, radiation resistance of leukemia cells hampers the success of these rigorous therapeutic approaches and results in poor survival.
Dr. Uckun, a former Stolman Scholar of the Leukemia Society of America and Director of the University of Minnesota Biotherapy Institute, has been studying since 1986 the underlying molecular mechanism of radiation resistance in ALL. His efforts were based upon the premise that it would be feasible to kill radiation-resistant leukemia cells if one learned what made them resistant. Recently, Dr. Uckun’s team has discovered a previously unknown molecular signaling network inside leukemia cells, named as SYK-STAT3 molecular target, that highjacks the cell’s survival machinery and causes radiation resistance (www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100930101556.htm).
Furthermore, his research has provided the first proof-of-principle that radiation resistance of an aggressive leukemia can indeed be overcome using a rationally-designed specific chemical compound directed against the resistance machinery of leukemia cells. CNBC featured this research by Dr. Uckun and Reuters, eScience News and Science Daily also covered the research (http://theweekly.usc.edu/detail.php?recordnum=17200). In 2011, NCI awarded $1.7 million to Dr. Uckun and his team at the Children’s Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases/Children’s Hospital Los Angeles in support of a 5-year research project to further optimize the clinical potential of his innovative strategy as part of a multidisciplinary effort to overcome radiation resistance of cancer cells.
Dr. Uckun is currently a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and Head of Translational Research in Leukemia and Lymphoma at Children’s Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases/Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
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