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Craig B. Thompson, M.D., studies the genes that regulate apoptosis and investigates their application in treating cancer. All cells in the human body can initiate their own death through a process called apoptosis. Cells activate apoptosis when they become damaged or when they do not get enough nutrients. This form of regulated cell death prevents the body from accumulating excess or unwanted cells. For cancer cells to accumulate, they must lose their ability to undergo apoptosis.
Thompson's laboratory has pioneered the study of the Bcl-2 family of oncogenes, or cancer-causing genes, and their role in regulating cell survival. Based on this research, future treatments could be designed to block the ability of cancer cells to survive, and thus limit tumor size and prevent the cancer from spreading. Better understanding of how apoptosis is regulated may also generate preventive treatments for individuals predisposed to cancer.
Background
After an undergraduate career at Dartmouth College and graduate training at Dartmouth Medical School, Craig Thompson received his MD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1977. He served his internship and residency in internal medicine at Harvard's Peter Bent Brigham Hospital from 1977 to 1979. He was senior resident at Boston's University Hospital from 1979 to 1981. Thompson was a physician at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD, from 1981 to 1983 and an assistant professor of medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, also in Bethesda, from 1982 to 1987. Also, between 1983 and 1985, he was a fellow in hematology and oncology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center at the University of Washington. From 1987 to 1993, Dr. Thompson was on the faculty of the University of Michigan, where he was a member of the department of Medicine and an Associate Investigator in the Howard Hughed Institute. In 1993, he became the Director of the Knapp Center at the University of Chicago and an Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Thompson joined the Abramson Institute as Scientific Director in 1999. |
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