Robert Allan Weinberg (born November 11, 1942) is an American biologist, Daniel K. Ludwig Professor for Cancer Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), director of the Ludwig Center of the

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

, and

American Cancer Society The American Cancer Society (ACS) is a nationwide non-profit organization dedicated to eliminating cancer. The ACS publishes the journals ''Cancer'', '' CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians'' and '' Cancer Cytopathology''. History The society w ...

Research Professor. His research is in the area of

oncogenes An oncogene is a gene that has the potential to cause cancer. In tumor cells, these genes are often mutated, or expressed at high levels.

and the genetic basis of human cancer. Robert Weinberg is also affiliated with the

Broad Institute The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (IPA: , pronunciation respelling: ), often referred to as the Broad Institute, is a biomedical and genomic research center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The institu ...

and is a founding member of the

Whitehead Institute Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research is a non-profit research institute located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States that is dedicated to improving human health through basic biomedical research. It was founded as a fiscally indep ...

for Biomedical Research. Weinberg and

Eric Lander Eric Steven Lander (born February 3, 1957) is an American mathematician and geneticist who is a professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and a professor of systems biology at Harvard Medical School. Eric Lander is ...

, a colleague at M.I.T., are co-founders of Verastem, a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing drugs to treat cancer by targeting cancer stem cells.

Career

Weinberg earned SB in Biology from

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

in 1964 and PhD in biology from the same institute in 1969. He was an instructor in biology at

Stillman College Stillman College is a Private college, private historically black colleges and universities, historically black Presbyterian Church (USA), Presbyterian college in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It awards Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees i ...

Tuscaloosa, Alabama Tuscaloosa ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, Tuscaloosa County in west-central Alabama, United States, on the Black Warrior River where the Gulf Coastal Plain, Gulf Coastal and Piedmont (United States), Piedm ...

(1965–1966), and a postdoc in Ernest Winocour's lab at the

Weizmann Institute of Science The Weizmann Institute of Science ( ''Machon Weizmann LeMada'') is a Public university, public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, fourteen years before the State of Israel was founded. Unlike other List of Israeli uni ...

(1969–1970) and in

Renato Dulbecco Renato Dulbecco ( , ; February 22, 1914 – February 19, 2012) was an Italian–American virologist who won the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on oncoviruses, which are viruses that can cause cancer when they infect anim ...

's lab at the

Salk Institute for Biological Studies The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is a scientific research institute in the La Jolla community of San Diego, California. The independent, non-profit institute was founded in 1960 by Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vaccine; among th ...

(1970–1972). He joined MIT in 1972.

Research

He is best known for his discoveries of the first human

oncogene An oncogene is a gene that has the potential to cause cancer. In tumor cells, these genes are often mutated, or expressed at high levels.

Ras and the first

tumor suppressor gene A tumor suppressor gene (TSG), or anti-oncogene, is a gene that regulates a cell (biology), cell during cell division and replication. If the cell grows uncontrollably, it will result in cancer. When a tumor suppressor gene is mutated, it results ...

Rb^p. 371-381, which is partially documented in

Natalie Angier Natalie Angier /ænˈdʒɪər/ (born February 16, 1958 in the Bronx, New York City) is an American nonfiction writer and a science journalist for ''The New York Times''. Her awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting in 1991 and the A ...

′s book, Natural Obsessions, about her year spent in Weinberg's lab. In the late 20th century, advances in genetics led to the discovery of over one hundred cancer cell types. Cancer cells were noted for their bewildering diversity. It was hard to identify the principles that cancers had in common. He and

Douglas Hanahan Douglas Hanahan (born 1951) is an American biologist, professor, and Director Emeritus of the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research at EPFL (École polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is a Distinguishe ...

wrote the seminal paper "

The Hallmarks of Cancer The hallmarks of cancer were originally six biological capabilities acquired during the multistep development of human tumors and have since been increased to eight capabilities and two enabling capabilities. The idea was coined by Douglas Hana ...

", published in January 2000, that gave the six requirements for one renegade cell to cause a deadly cancer: In 2011, they published an updated review article entitled "Hallmarks of cancer: the next generation". Weinberg is well known for both his cancer research and for his mentorship of many eminent scientists, including

Tyler Jacks Tyler Jacks is a David H. Koch Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a long-time HHMI investigator, and founding director of the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, which brings together bi ...

William C. Hahn

Clifford Tabin Clifford James Tabin (born 1954) is chairman of the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. Education Tabin was educated at the University of Chicago where he was awarded a BS in physics in 1976. He went on to graduate school at Mas ...

, Sendurai Mani and Cornelia Bargmann. He is currently studying cancer cell metastasis. He is also the author of the textbook ''The Biology of Cancer'' published by Garland Science, as well as two important accounts intended for a wider audience: ''One Renegade Cell: How Cancer Begins'' (1999) (Science Masters Series); and ''Racing to the Beginning of the Road: The Search for the Origin of Cancer'' (1996). , Weinberg has an

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with success indicators such as winning t ...

of 209 according to

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of Academic publishing, scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in Beta release, beta in November 2004, th ...

Awards and honors

In 1985, Weinberg received the Golden Plate Award of the

American Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a nonprofit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest-achieving people in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet one ano ...

. Weinberg won the

National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral science, behavior ...

and the

Keio Medical Science Prize The Keio Medical Science Prize ( Japanese: 慶應医学賞) is a Japanese prize in medical sciences. Introduction The prize is awarded to scientists who made significant contributions to the field of medical sciences or life sciences. And these c ...

in 1997. In 1999, he received the

Albert Einstein World Award of Science The Albert Einstein World Award for Science is an annual award given by the World Cultural Council "as a means of recognition and encouragement for scientific and technological research and development", with special consideration for researche ...

in recognition of his valuable and pioneering contributions in the field of Biomedical Sciences and for his productive trajectory related to the genetic and molecular basis of neoplastic disease. He was elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

in 2000. He obtained the Wolf Prize in Medicine in 2004 (shared with Roger Y. Tsien), and he is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. In 2007 he received an honorary doctorate degree in commemoration of

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

from

Uppsala University Uppsala University (UU) () is a public university, public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the List of universities in Sweden, oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. Initially fou ...

. He is a member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences () is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for promoting nat ...

since 1992. In 2009 he was presented the Hope Funds Award in Basic Research. In 2013 he was awarded the $3 million

Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences is a scientific award, funded by internet entrepreneurs Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan of Facebook; Sergey Brin of Google; entrepreneur and venture capitalist Yuri Milner; and Anne Wojcicki, one of t ...

for his work and in 2021 he received the

Japan Prize is awarded to individuals whose original and outstanding achievements in science and technology are recognized as having advanced the frontiers of knowledge and served the cause of peace and prosperity for mankind. As of 2024, the Japan Prize h ...

Retractions

To this day Weinberg has had five research papers retracted where he is listed as a co-author. The retractions include one paper in Cell, one in Cancer Cell, two in Genes & Development and one in Cancer Research. This is out of over 450 publications since 1963. The reasons given for the retraction of one paper (DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2009.03.04) include: "Falsification/Fabrication of Data" and "Manipulation of Results".

References

External links