Dean Allen Lichter and Stephen Weiss Elected to Institute
of Medicine
Two noted researchers from the U-M Medical School are among
the 60 new members of the prestigious Institute of Medicine,
the medical component of the National Academy of Sciences. Allen
S. Lichter (M.D. 1972) and Stephen J. Weiss, M.D., join 25 other
U-M faculty in the Institute, which has a total active membership
of 632.
Institute of Medicine membership is an honor reserved for those
who have made distinctive contributions to health through biomedical
or social sciences research or leadership in the health professions.
One-fourth of members are drawn from outside the traditional
health disciplines. Only Harvard University and its several
affiliated hospitals had more faculty elected this year than
did Michigan, which had a total of four faculty elected University-wide.
“Election to the Institute is a major professional honor,
and the U-M is fortunate to have contributed a total of 13 new
members in the past four years,” said Gilbert S. Omenn,
M.D., Ph.D., U-M executive vice president for medical affairs.
“The Institute of Medicine provides an important mechanism
for bringing together talented individuals committed to improving
the health of our country’s population. Allen Lichter and
Stephen Weiss exemplify the highest standards in patient-oriented
medical research, and the fertile interdisciplinary culture
of the U-M helps faculty and students realize the multiple interacting
causes of illness and injury.”
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Allen
Lichter was an early advocate of the lumpectomy approach
to treating breast cancer and conducted one of the trials
that found lumpectomy and radiation therapy to be as effective
as traditional mastectomy treatment.
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Lichter is dean of the Medical School and the Newman Family
Professor of Radiation Oncology. He has specialized in the treatment
of breast cancer and lymphoma and has clinical research interests
in the treatment of breast cancer, radiation therapy treatment
planning, and conformal, computer-controlled radiation.
Dean Lichter is a former director of the radiation therapy section
of the National Cancer Institute’s Radiation Oncology Branch.
He was an early advocate of the lumpectomy approach to the treatment
of breast cancer and conducted one of the trials that found
combined use of lumpectomy and radiation therapy to be as effective
as traditional mastectomy treatment. Lichter and the Department
of Radiation Oncology have made major contributions in the field
of three-dimensional treatment planning and conformal radiation
therapy, helping to create new methods of treating cancer with
radiation.
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Stephen Weiss studies
the extracellular matrix during inflammatory disease and
invasive cancer. He has discovered a previously unknown
mechanism for tissue damage in humans that is involved
in the spread of malignant cells to different parts of
the body.
Photo: Martin Vloet
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Weiss is the E. Gifford and Love Barnett Upjohn Professor
of Internal Medicine and Oncology. He holds joint faculty appointments
in the Medical School’s Cell and Molecular Biology Program
and the Department of Internal Medicine’s Division of Hematology
and Oncology.
Weiss studies what happens to the extracellular matrix —
a molecular scaffold that links cells together — during
inflammatory disease and invasive cancer. He has discovered
a previously unknown mechanism for tissue damage in humans involving
a highly destructive class of metalloproteinase enzymes. These
enzymes are involved in the spread of malignant cells to different
parts of the body — a process called metastasis —
and in the growth of blood vessels to cancerous tumors. Weiss’s
research laboratory is attempting to isolate and identify genes
that regulate these tissue-destructive and invasive processes
in animals.
—Mary Beth Reilly
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