Anthony Cerami (born October 3, 1940) is an American entrepreneur and

medical research Medical research (or biomedical research), also known as health research, refers to the process of using scientific methods with the aim to produce knowledge about human diseases, the prevention and treatment of illness, and the promotion of ...

scientist.

Biography

Anthony Cerami received his undergraduate degree from

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

and received a Ph.D. in 1967 from

Rockefeller University The Rockefeller University is a Private university, private Medical research, biomedical Research university, research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and pro ...

, New York, completed postdoctoral fellowships at

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area, Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is the third oldest medical school in the Un ...

and at the Jackson Laboratory and served for 20 years as Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Medical Biochemistry, and Dean of Graduate and Postgraduate Studies at Rockefeller. In late 1986 Cerami was a founder of Alteon, Inc. which licensed patents filed by Rockefeller on work Cerami had done there; Cerami took a seat on the board of the company, was on the scientific advisory board, and received research funding from Alteon first at Rockefeller and then at Picower, and later through his consulting company and the "Kenneth S. Warren Laboratories, Inc." In the spring of 1999 Alteon and Cerami terminated the consulting agreement and research agreement with Warren Labs, and Cerami resigned from the board. Cerami was one of 15 Rockefeller faculty who vocally opposed the appointment of

David Baltimore David Baltimore (born March 7, 1938) is an American biologist, university administrator, and 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. He is a professor of biology at the California Institute of Tech ...

as president of Rockefeller in 1989. Due in part to that disagreement, in 1991 Cerami left Rockefeller to found (with Jeffry Picower) the Picower Institute for Medical Research on the grounds of

North Shore University Hospital North Shore University Hospital (formerly known as North Shore Hospital) is a part of Northwell Health. It is one of two primary teaching hospitals for the Zucker School of Medicine (along with LIJ), offering residency programs, postgraduate t ...

. As of March 1998, Cerami was President of Cerami Consulting and was president and Trustee of the "Kenneth S. Warren Laboratories, Inc. The Picower Institute was closed down by Picower in 2001, and early the next year it was acquired by The Institute for Medical Research at North Shore-LIJ. As of 2001, Cerami was the director and lead researcher of the Kenneth S. Warren Institute, and in 2001, Warren Pharmaceuticals was formed to commercialize inventions made at the institute; Cerami was chairman of the board.

Research

Cerami has led research programs into genetic, metabolic and infectious diseases, with the goal of translating scientific discovery into drugs and diagnostic tests. He received funding from the

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The foundation was created by Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller (" ...

to study

neglected tropical diseases Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are a diverse group of tropical infections that are common in low-income populations in developing regions of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. They are caused by a variety of pathogens, such as viruses, bacteri ...

and traveled to Africa, where he became interested in the

wasting In medicine, wasting, also known as wasting syndrome, refers to the process by which a debilitating disease causes muscle and fat tissue to "waste" away. Wasting is sometimes referred to as "acute malnutrition" because it is believed that epis ...

, one of the symptoms of African sleeping sickness. He developed and validated a measurement of glycated hemoglobin to monitor control of blood sugar in people with diabetes, and a paper he published in 1985 using

polyclonal antibodies Polyclonal antibodies (pAbs) are antibodies that are secreted by different B cell lineages within the body (whereas monoclonal antibodies come from a single cell lineage). They are a collection of immunoglobulin molecules that react against a s ...

against tumour necrosis factor-alpha was important in the field of immunology for demonstrating that TNF-alpha causes disease and blocking it could be a treatment. Work that he did while he was at Rockefeller on

advanced glycation end-product Advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) are proteins or lipids that become Glycation, glycated as a result of exposure to sugars. They are a bio-marker implicated in aging and the development, or worsening, of many degenerative diseases, such as dia ...

s (AGEs) and protein

cross-link In chemistry and biology, a cross-link is a bond or a short sequence of bonds that links one polymer chain to another. These links may take the form of covalent bonds or ionic bonds and the polymers can be either synthetic polymers or natural ...

ing and their roles in metabolic diseases and aging was patented by Rockfeller and licensed to Alteon Inc. in 1987 and in 1992 the company licensed further work that Cerami did on the use of pimagedine to reduce AGEs. At the Warren institutes, he led work on

erythropoietin Erythropoietin (; EPO), also known as erythropoetin, haematopoietin, or haemopoietin, is a glycoprotein cytokine secreted mainly by the kidneys in response to cellular hypoxia; it stimulates red blood cell production ( erythropoiesis) in th ...

derivatives that were called "tissue protective cytokines"; this work was licensed to Warren Pharmaceuticals and through them to

Lundbeck H. Lundbeck A/S, commonly referred to as Lundbeck, is a Denmark, Danish international pharmaceutical company engaged in the research, development, manufacturing, marketing and sale of pharmaceuticals across the world. The company’s products ar ...

in 2001; the development program was terminated in 2007. He is the recipient of the Luft Award in

Diabetes Diabetes mellitus, commonly known as diabetes, is a group of common endocrine diseases characterized by sustained high blood sugar levels. Diabetes is due to either the pancreas not producing enough of the hormone insulin, or the cells of th ...

and the

Frederick Banting Sir Frederick Grant Banting (November 14, 1891 – February 21, 1941) was a Canadian pharmacologist, orthopedist, and field surgeon. For his co-discovery of insulin and its therapeutic potential, Banting was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physi ...

Medal for Scientific Achievement, awarded by the

American Diabetes Association The American Diabetes Association (ADA) is a United States-based nonprofit that seeks to educate the public about diabetes and to help those affected by it through funding research to manage, cure and prevent diabetes, including type 1 diabetes ...

in recognition of his lifelong work on diabetes.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cerami, Anthony Living people Rockefeller University alumni Harvard Medical School people 1940 births Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Members of the National Academy of Medicine Rutgers University alumni Fellows of the American Academy of Microbiology